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SHEEP OF THE SHEPHERD 


























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THE SHEEP FOLD 









































SHEEP OF THE SHEPHERD 

Little Idyls of a Sheep Farm 


BY 

LILLIAN A. NORTH 

»* 

ILLUSTRATED BY 

Lorenz C. Braren 



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> > > 

) 


NEW YORK 

E. P. DUTTON AND COMPANY 
681 Fifth Avenue 





Copyright, 1923 

By E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 

All Rights Reserved 



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Printed in the United States of America 

SEP 2 4’23 

©Cl A 759088 


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*Vv & 



CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 

I. 

The Installation . 


• 



PACE 

3 

II. 

Robin. 





15 

III. 

Eliza’s Angel . 





23 

IV. 

Sicomac .... 





30 

V. 

Ewey Lamb 





40 

VI. 

Bumpy. 





48 

VII. 

Beatrice .... 





S 8 

VIII. 

Foster, the Wrestler . 





70 

IX. 

Marjorie, the Starter 





8 l 

X. 

Naomi. 





91 

XI. 

Rome and Egypt 





102 

XII. 

Big Billy .... 





III 

XIII. 

Little Billy 





121 

XIV. 

The Lily Lamb 





129 

XV. 

Boy. 





139 

XVI. 

The Autocrat’s Baby . 





152 

XVII. 

The Seasons’ Round 





163 















SHEEP OF THE SHEPHERD 


The Autocrat, who owned the sheep, had com¬ 
mandeered the shepherd’s own flock from a land 
of plenty (Goshen) to a ruined farm (Little Siberia). 
Their usual attendants, 

Master, the shepherd’s dog 
The shepherd and shepherdess, Michael 
and Eliza 

Rube, the woodsman, and Old Eph, the 
stable hand 

went with them. 



SHEEP OF THE SHEPHERD 

CHAPTER I 

THE INSTALLATION 


I TURNED in late and not without presage 
of trouble. Hardly separable from my first 
dreams there came a queer rushing sound. 
I sprang to the window. The cottage yard 
and the adjacent field were carpeted with 
woolly backs. They pressed close to the 


3 




4 


SHEEP OF THE SHEPHERD 


house, and the leader, a tame sheep, named 
Gaiters, looked up at it as she uttered her 
plaintive note. Gaiters’ attitude was an ex¬ 
planation. The sheep were asking Eliza to 
take them back to Goshen. They rushed 
back and forth, a ghostly army, cleaving the 
night silence eerily. On each return I caught 
with relief the familiar voice of Gaiters. So 
absorbing were my sensations, I had not time 
to wonder at the absence of the shepherd’s dog, 
Master, ere he came bounding towards us 
from the pines. The dog rushed immediately 
to the adjacent field to cut off the sheep’s 
avenue of escape. Eliza appeared in her 
well-known bonnet, grey skirt and man’s coat. 
She had a string of lighted lanterns on her 
arm. She spoke to Gaiters. From Eliza’s 
voice her heart is never absent. Her mind 
contained nothing but the knowledge of the 
flock’s distress in its strange surroundings. 
She was heart-broken because the sheep had 
not even the consolation of good fodder. She 
feared for them the dark as they feared it. 


THE INSTALLATION 


S 

For she had seen them start at shadows and 
huddle at a noise. She called their leader. 
The ewe ran up to her, and the harassed 
sheep made after their shepherdess with one 
accord. Old Eph and Michael made the 
fence secure again while the dog kept watch. 
Master knew what had scared the sheep, but 
he kept his counsel. 

In every stable, shed and corner Eliza hung 
a beacon light which said as plainly as her 
presence, “Do not be afraid, for I am with 
you.” When the shepherd came to the cot¬ 
tage with his morning report, Eliza’s lanterns 
still glowed faintly in the barns. 

The flock had been shorn despite the dark 
prophecies of Old Eph who still wore his win¬ 
ter overcoat. It was pasture time elsewhere, 
but for us the earth had yet to yean. We felt 
as shepherds when they wait for the young of 
the ewe which expects the storm. 

Little Siberia was a wild hilly stretch in 
northern New Jersey, on the northwest border 
of the Autocrat’s domain. The dark woods 


6 


SHEEP OF THE SHEPHERD 


that shut it out from the warmth of the south 
and east exposed it to the bitter misery of the 
northwest wind. The hardy violet there was 
rare, the useful plantain, timid pioneer, 
waited for our footsteps. Patches of blue¬ 
berry attested the soil’s poverty unashamed. 
There flourished the funereal cedar, the scrub 
oak, the birch and poplar. Under our feet 
roots of sweet fern and sumac lay thick, inter¬ 
woven. Cat briar and poverty grass revelled 
on what acid life was left. Little Siberia was 
accursed, and Michael’s flock was sent to take 
its curse away. 

They clung to shelter until hunger drove 
them afield. We led them up to Rube’s clear¬ 
ings. We took them through woodlands in¬ 
fested with hydatids and parasites. They 
stooped to the wild strawberry and the sprout¬ 
ing golden rod. They threshed out the fra¬ 
grance of the inedible pine weed and penny¬ 
royal. They reached despairingly for the 
tonic of the wild cherry. At noon the same 
sun shone upon them that shone on Goshen— 


THE INSTALLATION 


7 

the Goshen they had caused to blossom as the 
rose. 

There was a wise old ewe, named Chrissy, 
who never went to pasture. She encouraged 
others to follow her example. The shepherd, 
having learned his sheep wisdom from the 
sheep themselves, would not force them. 
Rube trimmed for them the roadside hedges 
and threw the brush inside. That, at least, 
was nourished by the dung of the passing 
horse. The old ewe and her little circle made 
the best of Rube’s contribution. Chrissy 
caught a stray apple now and then from some 
dying trees, and snatched Master’s crust when 
nothing better offered. The ewe and her com¬ 
panions ate their oat straw night and morning 
with the flock and escaped the dread diseases 
in the sour vegetation. 

A six-month lamb, named Eve, was the first 
to fail. She isolated herself and took salt and 
water desperately. There appeared under 
her chin a bladder-like pouch fluctuating in 
size and fullness. She lingered for a week, 


8 


SHEEP OF THE SHEPHERD 


disconsolate, without appetite, burning and 
shivering with fever, always standing. Her 
little weary legs only gave way at the last 
gasp. Eve was spared experimental remedies, 
but after death the shepherd examined her 
body to try to fathom the new and distressing 
conditions among his flock. 

It became a common thing for sheep to be 
missing from the fold at dusk. Their home¬ 
coming was pitiful. With full stomachs that 
always burdened and never gave them 
strength, they would lie down insensible to the 
urging nose and entreating paw of the anxious 
dog. 

The season of drought came. The birch 
leaves were covered with aphides. The gadfly 
was at his wicked work. The beautiful sheep 
month of September was lost in continual 
gusts of dry tempest. On the edge of these 
storms, sheep would drop overwhelmed. 
Some we had to raise. Others staggered to 
their feet like drunken men. A few stood up 
with their heads askew. Among these unfor- 


THE INSTALLATION 


9 


tunate was the Babe. She was a pet of mine, 
the first lamb born at Goshen. 

We had an improvised hospital on the sunny 
floor of the old barn. Here Master, despite 
his numerous duties, seemed to preside untir¬ 
ingly. Here numbers of young sheep, blood¬ 
less from the combined effect of drug and 
disease, gratefully hugged the warmth. Un¬ 
der their jaws were inserted quills from which 
dripped continually the wicked serum which 
Michael called Red Water. Eve had not died 
for naught. This outer flow was weakening, 
to be sure, but death could only be defeated 
by turning its course away from the lung cav¬ 
ity. Even the listless creeping back to life of 
these convalescents was something to be thank¬ 
ful for. 

In a sunny pen lay Chamomile, the shep¬ 
herd’s Shropshire ewe. She had been silent 
for days. There is no greater sign of sheep 
suffering. Master was hovering near when 
Chamomile got to her feet, shook herself 
weakly and poked her hot nose at him through 


10 


SHEEP OF THE SHEPHERD 


the hurdle. The dog bounded off for the shep¬ 
herd. Michael, coming in, heard the ewe’s 
address to her flock, and made such haste that 
the sheep all jumped away from him. For the 
shepherd knew that the cry of a sheep to 
its flock at the turn of illness is often its fare¬ 
well. But Chamomile was better and asked 
for food. She was given the flour of the oats, 
mixed with milk, the gruel of the flaxseed and 
steamed clover heads. The proceeds of some 
birch cut by Rube had bought food for Little 
Siberia’s invalids. 

Chamomile made a good fight for life and 
won. I nursed the Babe myself; Master 
danced devoted attendance on me. We gave 
her delicacies. Her appetite was fickle. She 
was always trying to straighten her little 
twisted head and resenting the fact that her 
efforts were useless. She sighed and moped 
under my assiduous care for weeks. One 
morning I caught her trembling as if with 
ague, and discovered that the wool on her 


THE INSTALLATION 


ii 


belly and flank was loosening. I went to the 
shepherd for advice. 

“The worry of the gadfly has affected her 
liver,” he said. “She wants more than tender 
nursing, acushla. She wants relief from suf¬ 
fering. It would be a kindness to end her 
life.” 

“At once, then, Michael,” I gasped and left 
her in his gentle hands. 

As the lambing season drew near, it was 
found that the wool of the flock was sadly im¬ 
poverished. All the long summer Nature’s 
own good gift to them, the blessed grass, had 
been denied. Rube was instructed to pile all 
his unsaleable birch in stacks tall enough to 
shelter the home fold from the bitterest winds. 
These forts were scarcely completed when the 
bleat of the first new lamb was heard in the 
sheep yard. 

Eliza and her faithful aid, Master, soon 
had work to do among the backward young. 
Motherhood has no charm for young and 


12 


SHEEP OF THE SHEPHERD 


ill-nurtured ewes. Dark Features insisted 
on bringing her hind foot down on the 
neck of the little suppliant for her milk. 
Eliza captured the foot gently while 
Master encouraged the lamb to suck by 
licking its tail, which is what the good 
sheep mothers do. The great twin-bearer, 
Mallard, would not know her second son 
that year. She swung up and down like 
a moored boat whenever her last born tried 
to catch the nipple. Eliza backed the dam 
into a corner and Master bumped the little 
hungry one up to the milk, which is what good 
sheep mothers ought to do. 

A well-conditioned flock will feed upon it¬ 
self for one generation. The last months at 
Goshen nurtured the first bonny lambs 
who preened themselves on the southern slope 
of Little Siberia’s sheep yard. When they 
could eat, they had no care or want. Bounti¬ 
ful supplies came in for them. The Autocrat 
did not begrudge the early lamb its few short 
weeks of thriving. 


THE INSTALLATION 


13 

When first these little ones were turned out 
to play, grown sheep forgot their age. Soft, 
fleecy, bouncing balls, they curved the neck, 
they grouped the feet, leapt, paused in air, and 
dropped to earth a featherweight. This was 
Master’s joy and recreation. He never tired 
of watching them at play. He stood among 
them cheering. He romped with them. He 
ran races. But when the first one showed 
signs of weariness, he lay down and made a 
cushion for its chin. 

The sheep no longer begged for Goshen. 
Winter was upon them and the cares of 
motherhood. Any shelter meant security. 
There were well dams, there were well little 
ones, despite the inhospitality of Little Siberia. 
But many a ewe gave her strength to her cre¬ 
ated young and had not vigor left to nurse it. 
Only Eliza could draw their milk with her 
gentle fingers. Her modest demands were dic¬ 
tated by a scrupulous wisdom they could not 
expect from their hungry lambs. So the shep¬ 
herdess fed them what milk their mothers 


H 


SHEEP OF THE SHEPHERD 


made, and Blossie, the shepherd’s cow, sup¬ 
plied the lack. Many a ewe brought forth 
a lamb at peace. Many a ewe labored with 
shapes that Old Eph buried. This imperfec¬ 
tion troubled the shepherd’s heart sorely. The 
tragedy of its waste sat heavily on us all. 

The Autocrat came down in his tandem 
cart at the end of the winter. He culled all 
the mothers who did not suckle young. 




CHAPTER II 
ROBIN 


SUMMER at Little Siberia still meant pain 
to the flock and care to the shepherds. Every 
morning during the hot weather Eliza 
brushed the noses of the sheep with pine tar 
to keep off the gadfly. Old Eph put around 
a plentiful supply of sulphur and salt, and 
Michael himself drew down burlaps over the 
southern and eastern exposures. 

But a lamb had been born to the Hampshire 
ewe, Calamus, whose splendid hardy perfec¬ 
tion encouraged the shepherds. We had 


15 


16 SHEEP OF THE SHEPHERD 

cheerfully named the newcomer, Robin. She 
escaped all baby ailments and grew up to fine 
stature with the nonchalance she betrayed at 
suckling time. Hampshire babies are always 
satisfied. 

Robin was now six months old. Her good 
carriage and her lack of haste bespoke a 
strength her brothers and sisters did not care 
to gauge. So her place at the feed trough was 
assured. The little ewe’s tending had been the 
tending of the least needy in the flock. She 
therefore missed the humanizing element that 
surrounded weaker lambs. Her powers of 
observation, instead of centering upon the 
shepherds, were bent upon the shepherd’s dog, 
Master. Robin was born with a consuming 
desire for exercise. At two weeks old she 
emerged from a creep hole in her pen and 
bounced up and down the aisle to entice the 
dog. At six weeks she converted the home fold 
into a circus. She outdid all other lambs at 
play, but her chief delight was to run close 
races with Master. When he reached the 


ROBIN 


17 


goal ahead of her, as he always did, she ran 
at him with her woolly head. In his way the 
dog was as handsome as the lamb. If her 
lashes were long and sweeping, so were his. 
If her eyes were beautiful, his were wise with 
the beauty of generations of his kind. If her 
fleece was gold and white, his was silver with 
breast and collar of snow. If her hoofs were 
neat and black, his downy toes were washed 
spotless in the brook. But for Robin’s magnif¬ 
icent long tail Master had no counterpart. 
He, like the mother and sisters and brothers 
of his race, was born tailless. 

One shadowy spring night the sheep had a 
scare. Its cause, though unknown to the shep¬ 
herds, was enough to make the flock break 
and to send Master bounding away in the di¬ 
rection of the pines. Little Robin followed 
him. She thumped the ground like a rabbit 
behind him, but with all fours. She trotted, 
but was forced to gallop at last to keep her 
leader in sight. This race was not like the 
races of old. This way was long and rough, 


18 SHEEP OF THE SHEPHERD 

and the feathery end of her tail hampered her 
by catching the briars. The dog, though 
aware of her company, accomplished what he 
set out to do. But he met her on his return 
and mercifully slackened his pace all the way 
back to the fold. 

Robin hated, like many another lamb, to 
have her nose painted. But she did more. 
Every morning she took pains to rub the tar 
off on the fleece of her quiet mother. She was 
grazing one sultry afternoon, thus rid of her 
protection, when the inevitable gadfly assailed 
her. Robin ran home and for the first time 
in her gay life lay down and cried. The rem¬ 
edies were as usual applied too late. 

Though the little sheep apparently recov¬ 
ered and resumed her wonted ways, the shep¬ 
herd Michael was watchful. In the warm 
days at the close of the following winter, he 
would listen anxiously for Robin’s sneeze. It 
was violent enough to make her nose bleed. 
Eliza, the shepherdess, then gave her snuff, 
and Michael blew tobacco smoke up her nos- 


ROBIN 


19 


trils. They succeeded at last in dislodging 
the grubs. But little Robin never felt quite 
the same. She was subject to strange sensa¬ 
tions caused by the work of the grobs on the 
cellular walls of the brain. At such times 
she knew no better outlet for her feelings than 
her old pastime of running. 

Night scares at Little Siberia were com¬ 
mon, but none could foresee the one that came 
in broad day. The flock was still in its winter 
quarters. The snow was on the ground. A 
starved-looking female hound walked into the 
fold. The old sheep, well filled and content, 
stood ere they ran. The younger ones broke, 
and with them, Robin. She felt pain in her 
head. Her brain seemed awry. Master had 
in a trice headed the stranger back to the pine 
woods. He knew well enough whence she 
came. Robin forsook the staid paths of com¬ 
ing maternity and followed the dogs. 

Eliza waited. She knew that Master would 
bring his sheep home. But the shepherdess 
was anxious because Robin was no longer a 


20 


SHEEP OF THE SHEPHERD 


lamb. The dog and his companion were 
sighted at last. Both were coming back 
slowly with lowered heads. 

The ewe was placed in a pen. She could 
not see over the tall imprisoning hurdles. Life 
had become a bad dream. When her head 
did not ache her body did. She could not 
stand with ease. She could not lie without 
pain. Ill had also befallen Master. He was 
making the night grewsome with his howls. 
But Robin did not know that Michael’s heart 
was broken. The shepherd’s dog, the gentlest 
and most faithful of his royal kind, was dying 
in prolonged agony through the petty spite 
and envy of a boor beyond the pines. 

With daylight Robin felt a little better. 
She was allowed to take drink and exercise in 
the yard. There she saw Master. She had 
missed his coming and going as other mem¬ 
bers of the flock would miss their shepherd. 
She ran up to him. The dog did not seem to 
recognize the companion of his ill-fated 
journeys. He sprang at her throat. Robin 


ROBIN 


21 


jumped back. In her helpless horror she was 
cast upon her back. When Eliza came up to 
rescue her, she had rolled over and fainted. 
The shepherdess kept a guarded space around 
the ewe, and when nature recovered her 
placed her once more in her pen. There the 
sheep went through the remainder of her trial. 

Robin stood gazing with wonder at two tiny 
lambs. She nosed them fearfully. They were 
quite still. Old Eph came in. He took the 
twins away, and just then Master bounded 
over the hurdle that separated her from the 
flock. With the tongue that had been all but 
ready for her offspring the poor sheep licked 
the dog’s face. He returned her caress and 
lay down. Robin scratched him with her 
foot. Her orphaned heart was yearning now 
for responsive company. But like the lambs, 
Master slept. The marvel of his peace crept 
on her then. She tucked herself up beside 
him and for the first time in two pain-filled 
days she quietly ruminated. They lay to¬ 
gether undisturbed for hours. At dawn there 


22 


SHEEP OF THE SHEPHERD 


came a sound like the northeast wind in the 
three locked chestnuts behind the barn, only 
this sound was close beside her. It was the 
passing of Master. When the shepherd re¬ 
moved the dead body of his dog, Robin be¬ 
came again conscious of her wounded brain, 
but beside the hurt of the gadfly she nursed 
a greater. Her babies were dead. The dog 
was gone. So Robin ran no more. She only 
mourned. 

The Autocrat came down in his tandem 
cart when Master was under ground. “Poi¬ 
soned? We must look into that. But the ewe 
—better kill her. She might mother run¬ 
aways.” 




CHAPTER III 
ELIZA’S ANGEL 


As the shepherd’s dog, Master, breathed 
his last, a lamb was born. It was a tiny pre¬ 
mature thing to take a hold on life—a sort 
of grieving souvenir from the flock. 

In compensation for its lack of size, the 
Great Artist had done its face in velvety 
blacks and whites, painted its eyes a violet 
blue, and shaped its fleecy form with the lines 
of beauty. 


23 






24 


SHEEP OF THE SHEPHERD 


Eliza took a great liking to this lamb. She 
called him fondly her angel. But as this name 
was subject to ridicule among the retainers of 
Little Siberia, she appealed to me for another. 
I could think of none but Gabriel. 

This was soon changed to Gabby. For this 
deflection Old Eph was responsible. He 
came once a day to clean up the pen where 
Gabby and his mother lived. The lamb 
would often help himself from the old man’s 
pail of lime. “That there Gabby lamb’ll 
make himself sick if he don’t keep his nose out 
o’ my lime bucket,” he asserted gravely. Eliza 
told him to keep his pail away; for after one 
of Eph’s visits Gabby had sneezed and cried 
with an abandon that seemed too much for 
his slight frame. But Michael the shepherd 
only smiled. He knew that lime made a fine 
snuff and a good antacid. 

It was not till Gabby had outgrown his first 
infant plaint that we found out how patient 
he was. His poor mother’s milk supply was 
not of the best. This fact seemed to enhance 


ELIZA’S ANGEL 


25 


the lamb’s wonderful sweetness. His eager 
little hum was pleasant music in a sheep yard 
where many hungry ones were blaring to be 
served. 

Little Gabby retained all his beauty while 
his dam loved him. But when she took to hid¬ 
ing in corners and asking Eliza not to discover 
her to her son, the lamb’s appearance grad¬ 
ually underwent a change. And this desertion 
of Gabby’s mother was when he was only six 
weeks old. But he always loved her. He 
would often hunt her up and range himself 
beside her, taking no further liberty than the 
solace of her company. 

The fact that his mother thought him too 
big to nurse altered the complexion of his 
daily life in many ways. There was no longer 
anyone to fight for him. He became the butt 
of the bossy flock because he never hit back. 
The other lambs knocked him away from his 
food. He accepted the situation, seeking 
some ewe with a satisfied appetite and curling 
himself up against her. At such times he 


26 SHEEP OF THE SHEPHERD 


was not only patient but blessed with a rare 
content. Did not Blossie, the good shepherd’s 
cow, live only for fortunate lambs like him? 
He knew that his shepherdess would come 
and lift him above the press of the flock. He 
knew she would find some safe corner to feed 
him in. 

Despite this extra nourishment, at three 
months little Gabby’s flanks were sunken and 
his tail thin. His skin was pearly white and 
his wool dry and harsh. “He is going wrong,” 
said the shepherd. “There is another debt 
charged up to Little Siberia.” 

The lamb did not thrive, but he could eat 
and take a bright interest in his surroundings. 
In the odd sweet moments that she snatched 
for him, Eliza would take him in her lap. 
There, with his legs doubled neatly under 
him, Gabby would lift his little head as if 
proud of the distinction. It took him but a 
moment to find his cud and chew with the 
same vigor as any healthy member of the 
flock. It was like a glimpse of a better world 


i 


ELIZA’S ANGEL 27 

to watch the meditative beauty of his little 
face. 

But while others thrived Gabby grew paler 
and more emaciated. His brow puckered. I 
saw the lines of care beneath the wool. 

Gabby was dying, but since he was so pathe¬ 
tic, it would be nearer the truth to say that he 
was living of some strange sheep disease 
whose diagnosis could only be reached by dis¬ 
solution. He seemed to feel no pain, but he 
was sensitive to the contempt of the bossy 
flock that he loved as he did Eliza and his 
dam. 

Kiddy, the delicious squinting Kiddy whose 
under-fleece was yellow as gold and who 
teemed with fat and prosperity, was yet espe¬ 
cially jealous of little Gabby. When the shep¬ 
herdess set him down all sleepy and off guard, 
Kiddy invariably ran at him and bucked him 
soundly in the ribs. Eliza, flying to his pro¬ 
tection, could have cried over that little mys¬ 
terious unwell belly which, though filled so 
well, yet served the lamb so ill. But by the 


28 


SHEEP OF THE SHEPHERD 


time she reached him, Gabby had squared 
himself, shaken out his wool and met her with 
a brave preening of his little head and neck. 

There came a time when Gabby ate obedi¬ 
ently rather than eagerly, and his food seemed 
to stimulate him but temporarily. But he 
never failed to eat with Eliza standing by. 
Many an extra ration of clover and bran did 
she filch for him. And she loved him the 
more because she felt certain of his condem¬ 
nation. 

The shepherd once told me that the gates 
of the sheep’s better world were always wide. 
Doubtless little Gabby knew this. When 
Eliza went to him for the last time, he set his 
legs apart, shook his fleece in order and stood 
at attention, looking up into her face as if to 
say, “Yes, Eliza. I am ready.” “Dear little 
Gabby,” she answered, “will you come out 
to die?” The lamb followed her unflinch* 
ingly into strange dark quarters. He looked 
and saw Michael, his own shepherd, his own 
good kind shepherd. 


ELIZA’S ANGEL 


29 


As Eliza walked uncertainly away the 
Autocrat was crying, “Where are the pets? 
If you would not make pets, I could tell culls 
at a glance.” But, as Eliza said, you couldn’t 
help making pets of the ailing. The culls 
were always the darlings. 

They held an autopsy over little Gabby. 
No disease could they find. His lungs were 
free, his liver clean. No ugly parasite marred 
his bowels. His body was as sw r eet as his life 
had been. Only the same signs of patience and 
emaciation were there, conditions inalienable 
to his soil. 

The Autocrat gave up the case. Gabby’s 
mother was offered up for the welfare of the 
flock. 





CHAPTER IV 


SICOMAC 


Little Annie’s lamb had been too busy 
drinking to speak, but when she saw Eliza 
she left the milk, backed up into a corner and 
looked up with bright wary eyes. The shep¬ 
herdess, seeing that the lamb had no need of 
her, fed the mother and left them. 

Indian names had come into use among the 
flock, so we called this little member Sicomac. 
She grew round and fat, but was still shy and 


30 


SICOMAC 


3 i 


dirty. Some mothers wash the fleece of their 
young. Little Annie gave her lamb plenty of 
milk and thought her duty done. “When 
the lamb is less scared, we will run them both 
into a clean pen,” said the shepherdess. And 
the baby’s grooming was left to the friction 
of the straw she lay upon. 

Sicomac’s face was brown and her ears grew 
spots instead of wool. Her flexible back was 
too round for a shepherd’s praise, but her 
slender legs had the correct outward turn and 
carried her splendidly. Her yellow greasy 
fleece left nothing to be desired. 

Sicomac was not a yearling when the indi¬ 
cation of her small pointed ears, held always at 
an angle of forty-five degrees, developed. She 
established her own place and held it. She 
was first at the food, the salt and the water. 
The precedence of age, which had always 
counted among Michael’s flock, mattered not 
a jot to the newcomer. She had acquired the 
habit of being dainty and discriminating with 
her food, and while this made a good sheep 


SHEEP OF THE SHEPHERD 


32 

of Sicomac it was most unfortunate for her 
victims. Sicomac tasted at everybody’s plate. 
Her onslaughts were as sudden, fierce and un¬ 
accountable as a young ram’s fight with his 
brother. The sheep fled at her approach. If 
one resisted, she would shove it from behind 
with her chin and shoulders, uttering a grunt 
like that of the great ram in the seasons when 
he had no love or tenderness for his ewes. 
Occasionally an old ewe objected to this domi¬ 
nant youngster. Sicomac jumped on her back 
and rode her out of the fold. Once, only once, 
this unseemly behavior brought about a fight. 
Sicomac was a small sheep, but the odds were 
awful. She fought head to head with her 
opponent until she beat her, and then turning 
round gave her a final rush that sent the poor 
victim on her knees with her nose in the mud. 

Eliza had no great cause to love Sicomac, 
and the little ewe, aggressive though she was 
with sheep, clung to her shy exclusive man¬ 
ners with human kind. She was least afraid 
of the shepherd, and it is certain that though 


SICOMAC 


33 


she amused, she could not anger him. She 
would look up into his face with her brown 
faun-like eyes and permit his hand to touch 
her head just once. But she did not care for 
a second caress. As for Old Eph, Sicomac 
simply stared at him as she stared at the flock. 

Sicomac bustled in and out the sheep 
sheds. Inside she looked for remnants from 
the special feeding of invalids. She ate these 
stray findings in the doorway. The home pas¬ 
ture was an old orchard. Sicomac ate with 
her ear alert not to miss the fall of an apple. 
When more than one fell she would run 
quickly from one to the other, steadying and 
breaking them with a strong upward move¬ 
ment of her lower jaw. This was all that 
was necessary to corner them all. Sheep 
do not like to eat anything tainted with an¬ 
other’s saliva. On still days and when the 
wind was in the east, Sicomac heard fall¬ 
ing apples three fields away, trotted down 
home to find them and ate them on 
her way back. Karl was with us from 


34 


SHEEP OF THE SHEPHERD 


Goshen. His oxen were plowing on the home 
pasture, and many of the flock were walking 
and smelling in his trenches. But Sicomac 
was too busy to heed this. It was September 
but the refreshing hope of it had been sucked 
up by August’s heat and temper. Sicomac 
was not oppressed. Tempest threatened. 
Sicomac had no fear. The flies were so thick 
that a little lamb buried her nose in Eliza’s 
skirt and cried. Sicomac, from where she 
stood under the best apple tree, looked on her 
with disdain. She had rubbed all the pro¬ 
tective tar off her own little brown muzzle by 
her untiring industry. All at once Sicomac 
snorted and rubbed her nose on the ground. 
Something terrible had happened to her. She 
might have fallen in her dismay. But that 
was not Sicomac’s way. She reeled her way 
indoors, and Eliza found her spinning round 
and round on the barn floor. “Bab bab,” 
cried Sicomac in defiance of her own help¬ 
lessness. “Bab ba-ab,” she shouted, staggering 
like one drunk. “Bab bab!” Eliza feared 


SICOMAC 


35 


she would be heard for miles. Any victim of 
the fly may stagger or fall, but few cry. Sico- 
mac shouted and shouted again, tempestuously 
struggling to gain the mastery over her 
whirling brain. Meanwhile Eliza applied 
the poisoned sponge and the atomizer, cooing 
in her sympathetic voice to still her patient. 
But the shepherdess did not know what Sico- 
mac knew,—that the fly’s eggs were breathed 
up beyond reach in the reflex of the little 
sheep’s first snort. 

Sicomac was conquered by a fly. She real¬ 
ized at last that no fighting could retract the 
inevitable disaster, and looking up into Eliza’s 
face with her big shy eyes she permitted the 
shepherdess to bolster her unsteady figure. 
She took the cooling medicine with docility 
and the next morning seemed herself again. 
But there were two differences. Sicomac 
never cried again: she always shouted. And 
she came to the call of the shepherdess, no 
longer resisting her touch. She would even 
abandon her thievery if Eliza held up a finger. 


36 SHEEP OF THE SHEPHERD 


One day Old Eph left his work to come to 
the cottage. “That there Christian Science 
sheep,” he said, “has stolen Dainty Foot’s 
turnips and is running all round the yard with 
the bucket.” 

When Eliza arrived on the scene Sicomac 
still had the tub grasped tight between her 
teeth and strong upper jaw and was carrying 
a quart of cut turnips about in search of a 
quiet spot to eat them in. This was the first 
time the sheep applied strategem when force 
became useless. It was not the last. Eliza 
scolded very gently, for although Sicomac 
did not hold her head askew as did most of 
her fellow victims, her passions were always 
on the surface. 

The following Christmas Sicomac was 
heard to shout, “Bab bab!” Eliza hastened 
to that cry, as what shepherdess would not. 
In a corner of the big barn floor, in a cold 
draught, lay a little wet premature thing of 
skin and bone, scarcely a lamb. Its forehead 
was bare and its ears were naked. The gadfly 


SICOMAC 


37 


and Little Siberia had worked their will on 
Sicomac’s first offspring. Every sheep had 
been cleared from the floor by the aggressive 
young mother. She was gazing at her first¬ 
born in her birdlike questioning way, half shy 
of it, not knowing what to do. Eliza picked 
up the lamb carefully, chafed its feet and car¬ 
ried it away to a warm straw-covered pen. At 
her loss Sicomac’s instinct awoke. “Bab bab,” 
she shouted looking around her wildly. Eliza, 
with her arm about the ewe’s neck, guided her 
into the pen with the lamb and left her some 
clover hay to dissect. 

Sicomac’s first baby was called Little Dick. 
He taught his mother to understand his need. 
He was very small and had the startled look 
of his dam. It was the look of a thing at bay. 
It pained us, reproduced thus in two succes¬ 
sive generations. Little Annie had once been 
chased by boys. The grandmother had for¬ 
gotten, but the Great Mother made both 
Sicomac and Little Dick remember. 

Despite his poor start Little Dick did well. 


38 


SHEEP OF THE SHEPHERD 


He put on flesh at a rate that did credit to his 
mother’s nursing and the shepherd’s reputa¬ 
tion. For the time being the passionate sheep 
found vent for her hurt in her devotion to her 
lamb, but when in the course of a few weeks 
he was taken away from her she would not be 
consoled. “Bab bab,” she shouted all day, 
and “Bab ba-ab,” she sobbed all night. She 
trotted blindly about seeking him. She stood 
outside the fold for hours in the rain asking 
Eliza to rescue Little Dick from the wet and 
the cold. Her steady grief revived the plaints 
of other childless mothers. The chorus was 
pitiful. “It is useless to bring her in until 
she has worn out her grief in her own way,” 
Eliza said to me. At last Sicomac, fortu¬ 
nately or unfortunately, trod on the point of a 
rusty nail. Lame and drenched she gave her¬ 
self up to the shepherdess. Eliza drew the 
nail and treated the little hoof with hot water 
and an antiseptic. Eliza wiped the surface 
water from the woolly coat, relieved the hot 
udder and lulled her patient into tired peace. 


SICOMAC 


39 

For many days after Sicomac was so hoarse 
that her voice could not be heard. 

But Sicomac’s reputation did not rest on her 
individual peculiarities alone. They were as 
nought to the fact that she had a Christmas 
lamb, that it was ready for market in six 
weeks, and that she grew more wool than any 
other sheep of her size. The Autocrat once 
said that Sicomac would thrive where other 
sheep would starve. The irony of this remark 
lasted Old Eph for weeks. 

Sicomac never made a sheep companion or 
friend. She clung to her lambs, and she was 
the only sheep in Michael’s flock who deliber¬ 
ately chose her mate, and then made him 
aware of her favor by running at him like a 
ram. But what she lacked in society she 
gained in other ways. Her attitude toward 
all the good things of life was understood by 
the flock and acknowledged tacitly by her 
shepherds. The Autocrat came down to see 
her once a year and on his last visit he had 
said, “Keep her ram lambs.” 



CHAPTER V 
EWEY LAMB 

A TERRIER dog had broken into the grazing 
fold. The old Cheviot wether kept running 
back and forth with his head aloft. Billy, the 
ram, had disappeared. It was Ewey Lamb 
who covered his retreat by stamping her foot 
at the dog. But although too wise to encour¬ 
age a dog chase herself, she was not too foolish 
to seize the opportunity afforded her by the 
appearance of the dog’s owner from over the 
hedge. 


40 



EWEY LAMB 


4i 


When Ewey left the field at a sharp trot, 
the wether followed with his head still held 
bv an invisible check string. But Billy, the 
Autocrat’s fine Southdown ram, could not be 
found. He was a youngster and a pet. The 
ewe had accustomed him to the cottage door, 
and she now kept running to it and looking at 
us as if we held the secret of Billy’s where¬ 
abouts. Looks proving of no avail she cried 
aloud, “M-m-ma—a-a!” At that Billy spoke 
up in his unsettled tenor. Ewey responded, 

“M-m-m-m-m!” to tell him that all was 

well, and he crept out from under the back 
stoop. 

He was a cowardly object to call a ram, and 
the dusty cobwebs and dead leaves caught by 
his fleece did not assist his front. The shep¬ 
herd laughed at his sagacity, but he laid his 
hand on Ewey’s head and said, “She is better 
than a dog.” The ewe did not understand 
Michael’s English, but she absorbed the praise 
and her mother heart was satisfied. 

Ewey, or Ewey Lamb as we more often 



42 


SHEEP OF THE SHEPHERD 


called her in her youth, was one of three sheep 
the Autocrat bought and placed with Little 
Siberia’s flock. Billy was the purpose of this 
purchase. The wether was his companion. 
For some time after this little group kept to 
themselves. The male sheep had catarrh. 
Ewey developed a tendency to sore mouth. 
But fine female that she was, her own pain 
never mattered. She piloted Billy and the 
Cheviot whenever they went abroad. She fre¬ 
quented the sunniest and most trodden spots. 
She hunted out the plantain and the dande¬ 
lion. She nipped the brush that had been 
cropped before. She culled the tall June 
daisies. When she looked to reassure herself 
of the safety of her companions, the sun dis¬ 
covered the velvet black and white of her face, 
the dark blue of her eye. When Billy and the 
wether wandered too far away, she cheerfully 
left her own selected pasture and picked her 
dainty way to join them. 

Billy became one of the parents of the flock. 
He was always a baby. Ewey looked after 


EWEY LAMB 


43 


him until she became engrossed in the cares 
of motherhood. Billy was then thrown back 
upon the society of the wether. The Cheviot 
could not protect him as the ewe had done. 
He was but a fond foolish old sheep doing his 
best to make wool and mutton. But he loved 
the ram, and Ewey had taught him how to put 
up with Billy’s uncertain humors and play 
target sweetly, and he was faithful to her ex¬ 
ample to the end of his days. 

Ewey had twin lambs. One was a little 
Billy, the other a ewe like herself. She fussed 
over them like a busy hen. She fed them of¬ 
ten. She taught them good healthy hardy 
habits. When they were but four days old, 
they straddled their ungainly legs beside her 
in the snow, while she dipped for mouthfuls 
of its frozen purity and raised her head to 
look around alertly as she ate. 

The ewe never made her health a source 
of concern to the shepherds. She had cured 
her mouth with herbs. She escaped the gad¬ 
fly. She bore whatever pain was hers without 


44 


SHEEP OF THE SHEPHERD 


betrayal. Her lambs did well. But her 
mother heart could not wean them. The ap¬ 
peal of her worn devoted figure in the spring 
of the year forced the shepherd to remove 
her progeny to a distant part of the fold. The 
ewe mourned, but in the course of a few days 
was again seen in the company of her old 
chums. 

When, therefore, Billy, the ram, and the 
old Cheviot wether took their last journey by 
the certain road that Michael’s flock always 
traveled, the ewe, having revived her old 
friendship with them, went about wondering 
and distressed. 

“She must have something to mother,” said 
the shepherdess. “She will take to the flock 
now.” 

Eliza’s surmise proved a correct one. 
Ewey became the leader of hundreds and re¬ 
tained that post until she died. She encour¬ 
aged them in safe paths. She meekly shared 
with them her all. She never fought. She 
did not give way to anger. She had no passion 


EWEY LAMB 


45 


but to nurse or to protect. But she did not 
fear to stamp her foot in the face of danger 
that they might be warned. 

Each year the old ewe, as she now came to 
be called, bore twins—always a ram and ewe. 
Mothering came to be her pain, but it was 
also her reward. She would talk to her young 
hours before they were born. “M-m-m—m! 
M-m-m—m!” she hummed in greeting, often 
deceiving the shepherdess. 

Ewey was the idol of the farm hands. 
Rube, the woodman, always had an apple for 
her. She could take it from his pocket. Old 
Eph gave her sugar, and she would dance up 
to Karl, the plowman, at his lunch in expec¬ 
tation of a crust. One morning the shepherd 
saw Old Eph giving the ewe a handful of 
corn he was throwing to the chickens, and he 
warned him that he was taking a great risk 
with the sheep’s digestive system. Oats, he 
held, was the only grain fit for bearing ewes. 

But to feed Ewey had already become a 
custom. She looked for it. The fascination 


46 SHEEP OF THE SHEPHERD 

of her ready greeting, her searching nose, 
her eager murmur were too great to be en¬ 
tirely foregone. 

The shepherd’s inference became truth. 
Ewey had acute indigestion. Her appetite 
became depraved in her effort to help herself. 
She ate wood, soil, the dung of the pigeons. 
She was again heavy in lamb. For her the 
periods between nursing the old babies and 
welcoming the new were always too short. 
The shepherd feared to deplete her strength 
with saline medicine. She was given her tonic 
in oil. 

A few days before her lambs were expected, 
Ewey had an attack of what is known in shep- 
herdry as parturient apoplexy. Her strength 
was wasted in cruel useless paroxysms. When 
they were at last subdued with opiates Ewey 
lay helpless. Twice each day, and twice in 
the night, her faithful nurses gently turned 
her on her side. She sucked her flaxseed gruel 
every hour so obediently that Eliza hoped for 


EWEY LAMB 


47 

her recovery. But these sweet deceits had 
their source only in her eager gratitude. 

“Ma-a-a!” The cry was faint. It was ad¬ 
dressed to the flock from their gentle leader. 
It was her good-bye. She asked their forgive¬ 
ness for her desertion. 

“M-m-m-m-m!” It was the last apol¬ 

ogy of love. The syncopated bleat of twin 
lambs protested. But the old ewe’s jaw had 
dropped. Eliza gathered the orphans fondly 
in her arms. Michael stood soberly looking 
for the immediate cause of death. A rosy 
froth at Ewey’s nostrils explained the final 
hemorrhage. 

“She has been kept just one year too long,” 
said the Autocrat. “The ewe’s period of use¬ 
fulness ended last spring. Bring on the twins 
for market.” 




CHAPTER VI 
BUMPY 


GOSHEN had for generations sent sheep to 
the cattle fairs. The great Priscilla strain was 
well known to shepherds. Priscillas always 
bore twin lambs of diverse sex. The little 
brothers of the Little Priscillas were thus born 
prematurely, and being the sons of sires whose 
identity was new each year were scarce worth 
notice. But a glance could not distinguish a 
mother Priscilla from a daughter Priscilla 

48 
















BUMPY 


49 


after they had been shorn. The buck twin 
was invariably made a wether. The ewe twin 
went with her mother to the cattle show. 

In Goshen the Priscilla young were born at 
Christmas, but when the flock was removed 
to Little Siberia the last Priscilla did not yean 
till springtime. The shepherd for this and 
other reasons advised the Autocrat to omit his 
Priscilla exhibit for the year. But the prece¬ 
dent of the flock’s owner could not be broken. 
Priscilla and the Little Priscilla went away 
with Eliza, the shepherdess. Bumpy, the little 
brother, was left alone. 

At the time of Bumpy’s birth, he was even 
less developed than his brothers of seasons 
gone. He was many hours learning to stand. 
His sister alone benefited by the extra nutri¬ 
tion in the first milk of the mother. Bumpy 
didn’t care. To be close to his own was all 
he desired for days, and by the time he grew 
really hungry he had learnt, through the kind 
offices of Eliza, to dive and catch his even 
share simultaneously with his clever sister. 


5 ° 


SHEEP OF THE SHEPHERD 


Bumpy was a late lamb, and owing to his 
early advent into life, his hospital experience 
was delayed. This crowded the making of the 
wether lamb and the departure of his mother 
and sister into the space of two weeks. When 
they left him, Bumpy was still in the dark 
stable where he had been put with his dam 
and twin that he might not retard his healing 
by undue exercise. 

The shepherd heard with anxiety Bumpy’s 
loud and vehement protest against his deser¬ 
tion. The lamb had a fine resonant voice 
whose quality and strength was some comfort 
to the listener. But the incessant crying of his 
patient troubled Michael. Bumpy could 
never feel the disturbing passions of a ram, 
but it required a greater skill than the shep¬ 
herd’s to render him content without a mother. 
When Bumpy had cried for a day and night, 
his beautiful voice was broken. His note 
sounded as flat as the note of a cracked fiddle. 
The shepherd knew he had been weaned too 
early, and took care to instruct Eliza’s substi- 


BUMPY 


5i 


tute to give Bumpy cow’s milk three times a 
day. But Bumpy repudiated both Blossie’s 
contribution and the woman who forced it on 
him. The incapable attendant, discouraged 
with her ill success, left the lamb to his fate. 
He bleated only little heart-broken sobs now, 
nibbled his hay and licked his salt. But the 
water was a more comfortless substitute for his 
dam’s milk than the cow’s. He would not 
touch it. 

In the next stall to Bumpy an old farm 
horse was stabled. Often had the lamb ob¬ 
served the head of the friendly animal as he 
lifted it at the coming of Old Eph. After the 
insincere attentions of Eliza’s substitute, 
Bumpy watched for an opportunity of getting 
nearer to the horse. It came when Eph 
opened the door. Bumpy slid quickly in be¬ 
hind him. The grey like many another horse 
who has led a long industrious life, was 
troubled with indigestion, and had the habit 
of sampling strange materials. When he dis¬ 
covered little Bumpy close to his nose, he took 


SHEEP OF THE SHEPHERD 


52 

a bunch of wool. The lamb at once went back 
to his own stall, and Old Eph closed the door. 
Nevertheless Bumpy repeated his visit. He 
found it easier to give up a mouthful of wool 
to the horse than to take nutriment from the 
hand of his attendant. 

It was noticed that Bumpy did not eat his 
hay. Old Eph said the lamb had grown fond 
of the horse and ate with him. Further in¬ 
vestigation brought to light the condition of 
the lamb’s coat and after that he was denied 
close association with Dobbin. 

The woman attendant now forced Bumpy 
out to graze with other lambs. But Bumpy’s 
physical isolation had been followed too 
closely by desertion to make him at home in 
the company of his kind. One morning when 
he was shoved out into the light of day he 
wandered into Eliza’s herb garden. There he 
perceived a bright flower, but as he stooped to 
nip it the caretaker came running up and 
chased him back to his own quarters. 

The weather grew warm and muggy. It 


BUMPY 


53 


rained every other day and put Bumpy’s atten¬ 
dant out of routine. Through not wishing to 
expose him when it was wet, she forgot to put 
Bumpy out when it was dry. The lamb gave 
her no reminder. Bumpy had cried for his 
mother sincerely, looked for her constantly; 
his sufferings now were dumb. 

On Eliza’s return from the fair he had be¬ 
come a mere wraith of a lamb. He had ceased 
to ruminate and consequently to eat. He could 
not stand. He had been struck with maggots 
while he lay. His only complaint was a weak 
little kick of protest towards his irritated pelt. 

Eliza sheared away the filthy wool, and 
what burrowing pests remained she extermin¬ 
ated with diluted antiseptic. The little belly 
was carefully dried with hot cloths as were 
the new born lambs in the very coldest part 
of the season. The sore spots where the mag¬ 
gots had punctured the tender skin were 
soothingly dressed and Bumpy was helped to 
his feet in a cheerful cleanly-bedded pen. 
Here he was surrounded by his flock yet 


SHEEP OF THE SHEPHERD 


fenced securely from their assaults upon his 
weakness. The new sense of comfort and 
cleanliness helped him to stand awhile. He 
even tried to shake out his fleece. Bran, 
crushed oats and milk, good diet for ailing 
lambs, he refused and hunted for the innutri- 
tious bits of timothy among his clover hay. 

His abstraction and listlessness soon re¬ 
turned. Old Eph, who felt a little conscience- 
stricken because he had been forced to deny 
the lamb the company of the horse, picked 
him up one day and laid him in front of his 
cart for a ride. 

“Why, Bumpy is chewing his cud!” said 
Eliza, and she called the shepherd to witness 
the strange phenomenon. 

“It’s because he’s easy in his mind about 
being with Dobbin.” Old Eph explained. 

The shepherd smiled. “Turn the lamb on 
the other side and walk the horse back again.” 

Bumpy ceased to ruminate. 

“Turn him on the right side again and trot 
the horse.” 


BUMPY 


55 

The lamb filled his little wasted cheeks and 
plied his back teeth encouragingly. 

“The motion of the cart helps the weak 
muscles of the gullet. It is the left lung that 
is sore.” Michael leant over the lamb’s ex¬ 
haling breath. “It is not tuberculosis. The 
spark of life left in him you may revive, 
Eliza.” 

The shepherdess renewed her efforts. She 
kept him scrupulously clean. She laid him on 
his right side that he might digest with greater 
ease his slender meals. She strengthened him 
so that he took little constitutionals at her heels. 
She let him pay a visit to the old horse. But 
the grey calmly helped himself to a bunch of 
the lamb’s wool. The jealous attendant could 
not again subject her charge to this disrespect. 
Bumpy had no complaint. His body was so 
weak and ill-nourished that the fleece pulled 
without feeling to the wearer. 

Eliza persevered. When Bumpy was too 
exhausted to walk she carried him. When he 
could not stand alone she propped him. She 


56 SHEEP OF THE SHEPHERD 

consoled herself with the hope that he would 
grow happy again on his mother’s return. 
And so closely connected in the shepherd’s 
mind is rumination and prosperity that when 
Bumpy, on his right side, with his head pil¬ 
lowed on the straw, chewed a consistent cud, 
Eliza’s heart was gladdened, even while she 
could not stay her tears. 

There was no enthusiasm on the arrival of 
Priscilla and Little Priscilla, for Little Si¬ 
beria’s branch had lost the fame of its pro¬ 
genitors. Their points and likeness were un¬ 
deniable, but beside the fair company they 
had joined, Priscilla and her little ewe had 
not the look of prosperous sheep. The prize 
had not been awarded them. 

Bumpy’s mother and sister were taken to 
his pen. They had been absent three weeks. 
The lamb remembered, but they had for¬ 
gotten him. His dam refused him without 
rudeness; for if her memory had been charged 
too greatly with her recent experiences, she 
was still a sheep of gentle quality. But Little 


BUMPY 


57 


Priscilla ran at him with all the contempt of 
a mother’s darling for the outcast. Her well- 
set head butted vigorously into Bumpy’s sore 
left side. The little drama was enacted 
quickly. Eliza was just in time to catch the 
hurt lamb as he fell. 

His relatives were hurried from his habi¬ 
tation. He barely breathed all day, and at 
sundown passed on to a land where there are 
no cattle fairs. 

We all thought that a broken heart was the 
cause of Bumpy’s death. But the shepherd 
did not fail to hold his usual autopsy. He 
found that the lamb had ruptured a blood ves¬ 
sel on the left lung crying for his mother, and 
had been dying of internal hemorrhage. 

The Autocrat was disappointed with Little 
Siberia’s stem of his famous Priscilla strain. 
“Weed out the twin of the lamb that died and 
the dam,” he said. “We cannot afford to 
breed weak lungs.” 



CHAPTER VII 
BEATRICE 


So closely is the gay mood allied to the 
somber that the very pleasant orchard party 
turned by impulse into a near-by churchyard. 
While an old lady grew reminiscent about a 
wedding that occurred at the church in her 
youth, my attention was held by the graven 
image of a lamb above a buried child. 

It was years after that I became acquainted 
with Goshen sheep and followed their for- 

58 


1 


A 












BEATRICE 


59 

tunes to Little Siberia. But I often saw on the 
weather-beaten headstone the sleeping lamb, 
its nose put back against its heart. 

I could not help hailing little Beatrice as 
its perfect prototype. The eyes of the image 
were closed, but they must have been doe- 
dark like Beatrice’s own. I recognized the 
spotless body as the emblem of the child’s 
soul. When the lamb’s existence was dis¬ 
covered at three o’clock one cold morning she 
had curled herself up in a far corner to die. 
This is the custom of new-born lambs when 
they find no welcome. They take themselves 
to a distant and inclement spot that death may 
find them quickly. A little ram, Beatrice’s 
brother, lay already lifeless, though still limp, 
at the Bit-ba’s feet, because he would not be¬ 
lieve in her inhospitality. The young 
mother’s customary independence was some¬ 
what shaken. She sent out into the still air 
a challenging note for help. 

Eliza, appearing, passed the dead twin by. 
A glance told her she was useless to him. But 


6o 


SHEEP OF THE SHEPHERD 


in the little ewe, Beatrice, there was still life. 
The Bit-ba stood unconscious that she had 
any lesson to teach her young but since she 
made no objection to being an object lesson 
the shepherdess pushed the lamb up to the 
milk. She even placed the nipple between 
its unresisting lips. The little one waited and 
finding no motherly response her mouth fell 
gently away from its sustenance. Beatrice 
now wiggled her tail and shook out her fleece 
with unintentional deceit. Eliza felt the 
mother’s udder. It was as pliable as if the 
milk had been drawn. The Bit-ba was chew¬ 
ing her cud. Nothing then remained to be 
done but make Beatrice a warm straw nest, 
remove her dead brother, and re-supply the 
hay rack. 

At daybreak Eliza visited her charge again. 
The little ewe had crawled back to her 
draughty corner to die. As the shepherdess 
caught her up in her arms the limp head fell 
over. 

Beatrice was taken to the shepherd’s cabin, 


BEATRICE 


61 


her feet chafed, and her entire body rolled 
up in an old sheepskin. When Eliza went 
back to the mother to draw some milk she 
found the Bit-ba had none. The experience 
of the shepherdess for once had stood her in 
poor stead. Though she had been on hand to 
save, yet she had nearly lost the life of a lamb. 
She was not willing now to trust alone to the 
milk of another ewe, but bade Old Eph reach 
down the whiskey flask that she might add 
the stimulant of the liquor. The first tea¬ 
spoonful of this mixture that was adminis¬ 
tered to the dying lamb ran back from the 
corners of her mouth. Nothing discouraged, 
the shepherdess fed it spot by spot until her 
patient could swallow. The struggling life 
at last came back to the little inert body and 
Eliza’s conscience was eased. 

By careful feeding the shepherdess now 
sought to increase the Bit-ba’s supply of milk. 
She succeeded in a measure, but there was 
never enough in the dam’s udder to make it 
ache for her lamb. Eliza did not waste a 


62 


SHEEP OF THE SHEPHERD 


drop, and little Beatrice soon learned to eat 
bran. Old Eph, coming in and out to build 
up the fire, taught her to walk by the leading 
attraction of a birch stick she was fond of 
biting. Her weak crawl soon strengthened. 
The old man taught her to step to a rhythm 
by ringing the changes on her name, “Beaty 
beat, Beaty beat, Beaty Beaty Beaty beat.” 
Round and round the stove the lamb footed 
it briskly to Old Eph’s birch baton. This 
rhythmical gait clung to Beatrice so that she 
afterwards became known among the flock by 
her step. 

When Beatrice was two weeks old she was 
led to and from her mother’s pen and taught 
to draw the milk in the natural way. The 
Bit-ba, while permitting this, gave her lamb 
no sign of recognition. Eliza knew that it 
was time to wean Beatrice from the cabin fire 
that her mother might learn to know her and 
lead her to pasture in the spring. 

The Bit-ba could no longer remain uncon¬ 
scious of her lamb, but she showed disdain. 


BEATRICE 


63 


Eliza came to help her charge at meal times 
until Beatrice became quick and ready enough 
to help herself. But the dam only suffered 
her offspring’s presence and weaned her early. 
It was Eliza the lamb followed to pasture. 

In the sheep yard was another cast-off ewe 
twin. She was carried from pen to pen and 
given drink where drink was to be found. She 
was a bright practical lamb and would snatch 
any nipple she was held to. But she grew up 
restless and always wishing for more. The 
shepherd playfully called her Wish-It. The 
age of Wish-It differed from that of Beatrice 
by a day. Both lambs, being attached to the 
shepherdess, became companions. Wish-It 
was merely emulative, while Beatrice was 
friendly. On mild winter nights, when the 
moon made lambs think it still day, Eliza 
would permit these two foster lambs to ac¬ 
company her on her last walk round the sheep 
fold’s snowy enclosure. Wish-It would 
bounce higher than Beatrice and skip fast and 
furiously to outdo her gentler companion. 


64 SHEEP OF THE SHEPHERD 

But Beatrice was not jealous any more than 
she was conscious that her gambols had a 
grace to which the leaner body of Wish-It 
could not attain 

Beatrice grew and prospered. She was dis¬ 
tinguished by her mother’s shapely back and 
springing bodily ease. Her step was still set 
to the rhythm taught her by her old dancing- 
master, Eph. Though she was with the flock, 
she was not of them. She belonged to Eliza. 
To the shepherdess was given the docility and 
affection the dam had rejected. Eliza was 
both law and love to little Beatrice. 

Often on cold mornings, when the bitter 
northwest wind blew through the gaps in 
Little Siberia’s woodland, Eliza hugged the 
lamb and buried her cold fingers and nose in 
her warm fleece. Beatrice stood at ease 
sweetly unconscious of the comfort that she 
gave. At night, when the shepherdess had left 
the fold, the ewe quietly retired to her corner. 
She had not unlearned the lesson of her suck¬ 
ling days. Her pleasure in the coming of 


BEATRICE 


65 


Eliza on the morrow was not marred by im¬ 
patient anticipation during the night. She 
slept well. Yet it was her own gay shake of 
the head that gave the shepherdess first greet¬ 
ing in the morning, her own cold healthy nose 
that was the first to press against Eliza’s hand. 
She followed her about like a dog all day. 
She received her own portion at meal times, 
ate it every bit, but manifested no unlawful 
interest in that given to others. In the sum¬ 
mer she grazed alone, but if the shepherdess 
were there she asked no sweeter pasture than 
that which grew about Eliza’s feet. 

The gambolling rollicking sheep month of 
September came and the ram went a-court- 
ing. Beatrice lifted her body high in the air 
in pure joy at the weather. She skipped and 
danced as freely as the rest, but when the ram 
admired her she hugged the side of the shep¬ 
herdess. Eliza, in self-protection, was then 
forced to whip Othello off. Thus, while the 
shepherdess was there, the great fellow’s atten¬ 
tions to Beatrice were respectful. But one day 


66 SHEEP OF THE SHEPHERD 


on her way downhill to the fold Eliza came 
to a halt at the sound of thumping hoofs be¬ 
hind her. It was Beatrice following her. The 
ram was panting just behind. Eliza seized 
a prickly bush to fortify herself. It would 
have been inadequate persuasion for Othello, 
but a devoted ewe had followed him to re¬ 
claim his attention from her unwilling rival. 
Diverted from his object by his jealous lady, 
his retreat was easily effected by a little whip¬ 
ping about the ears. 

The lambing season came. Wish-It was 
mother to a bonny ewe lamb. But no lambs 
came to Beatrice. Wish-It careered about in 
her restless fashion and challenged Beatrice 
to fight. Beatrice knew no envy. She greeted 
Wish-It’s lamb sweetly. She herself was still 
a lamb in the hands of her shepherdess. 

When Beatrice was two years old, the Auto¬ 
crat picked her out as a fine sheep. “Where,” 
said he, “is her lamb?” Eliza trembled. But 
the shepherd interposed with, “I advise you 
to keep that sheep another year.” 


BEATRICE 


67 

The season of courting came round again. 
Many a blow from the hot-headed king of the 
fold did Beatrice receive. But a prickly bush 
had once been held between them by the shep¬ 
herdess. It established a precedent. Beatrice 
now protected herself. She developed such 
fugitive habits at pasture that Eliza was fain 
to procure her peace within the fold. Sep¬ 
tember passed. Othello grew indifferent. 
Beatrice resumed her quiet ways. She had 
one distinct pleasure in life round which all 
minor pleasures rolled—the companionship 
of the shepherdess. She ate for her, she 
played for her, but she would gladly leave 
both food and play to follow her. 

Lambs were frisking about again. Beatrice 
frisked with them. Wish-It came out with 
her second child. Beatrice greeted this new 
member of the flock as sweetly as a year agone. 
Wish-It took offence and desired to fight as of 
old. Beatrice responded by ranging herself 
inoffensively beside the shepherdess. 

Eliza saw the Autocrat’s dashing vehicle 


68 


SHEEP OF THE SHEPHERD 


drive into the yard. “How about that sheep? 
Has she a lamb?” 

The shepherd shook his head. “She may 
breed in her fourth year,” he said. 

“And become the mother of an unprolific 
strain,” said the Autocrat. 

Eliza left the yard. 

Ill-bred lambs stood in the feed trough, 
while the more gentle patiently picked their 
bran from between their dirty feet. Meek 
yearling ewes found their way into stocks 
made by uneven hurdles and pushed helplessly 
forward, while the older ones butted them 
for their stupidity. 

Eliza waited in far pastures until her 
favorite should be dead. It was her first de¬ 
flection from duty. The air was still yet it 
seemed to her that a high wind was shouting 
in the trees. 

Beaty beat, Beaty beat, Beaty Beaty Beaty 
beat. Beatrice had followed her. She would 
not be put to death without the leading sanc¬ 
tion of her shepherdess. 


BEATRICE 69 

It had remained for Beatrice to teach Eliza 
a lesson she never forgot. What we cannot 
do we must. 

On their return the sheep owner was still 
in the yard. “Michael, how long since a 
sheep slipped you like that?” 

Beatrice died a lamb. She was three years 
old. 

“When you have any more lambs which owe 
their start in life to whiskey, cut them off at 
three months,” and with these parting words 
the Autocrat drove away. 







CHAPTER VIII 
FOSTER, THE WRESTLER 


Eliza, the shepherdess, woke me coming in 
at the dreary morning hour of three. She 
had been tending Harebells, a down ewe that 
had been laboring for twelve hours with a 
lamb two weeks overdue. 

“Is the little one born?” I asked. 

“He is born,” Eliza gasped, “but he is not 
a little one.” 

“Overdeveloped, and a ram. The Auto¬ 
crat will want to keep him.” 


70 








FOSTER, THE WRESTLER 


71 


Eliza dropped in a chair. 

“Is the lamb with its mother?” 

“He won’t be anywhere else. I left him on 
his knees pulling for milk that isn’t there.” 

“You can’t control him?” 

“His birthday was really two weeks ago,” 
said Eliza as she left me to take a much- 
needed rest. 

When I went to see the lamb which was two 
weeks old though but a day, he was being 
rescued from imminent suffocation. The suf¬ 
fering mother had lain down upon him while 
he sucked. Foster, the Wrestler, earning al¬ 
ready the name he came to be called by, strug¬ 
gled in his savior’s arms until he was set down. 
Nothing disturbed, he went on his knees again 
and burrowed at his prostrate dam for the 
nipple. The ewe struggled to her feet and 
snorting and butting at her offspring fell, cov¬ 
ering him with her body again. 

I grieved to see Harebells in such a plight. 
I remembered her as a lamb dropped in the 
snow. She was so clean and fair that her 


72 


SHEEP OF THE SHEPHERD 


pretty primrose fleece looked pure against the 
field’s winter covering. Her infant voice was 
a chime so fairy-like that it suggested the 
name we gave her. She grew into a perfect 
sheep, and her progeny were held in high 
estimation by the owner of the flock. He 
prophesied that even through cross-bred rams 
the ewe would one day throw herself. He 
waited for that lamb. No lamb could have 
looked more like its dam than Foster, the 
Wrestler, but the resemblance was sheeply. ( 
He had no expression of her baby days. He 
was large. The wrinkles allowed in the jac¬ 
kets of newborn lambs were filled out in his. 
His well-set shoulders and straight spine al¬ 
ready insured the proud self-reliant carriage 
of his mother. 

When the shepherd ordered Foster’s sepa¬ 
ration from the ewe that bore him, the lamb 
was hurdled off among the cheerful busy 
flock. The instructions received from Goshen 
that the baby ram should be kept off cow’s 
milk were unnecessary. Foster disdained all 


FOSTER, THE WRESTLER 


73 


other food than sheep’s milk. He was car¬ 
ried about at periods to draw it from strange 
udders. Between meals he traveled up and 
down his little pen like some wild caged thing 
seeking escape. The society of the flock was 
no solace to him. He wanted his mother. 

Meanwhile Harebells, to whom medicine 
had before been unknown, was drugged with 
opium to ease the recurring spasms of her 
lamb’s birth. Her abounding vitality mani¬ 
fested itself in her desire to live. Her fine 
appetite never wavered. When her pain had 
weakened her so that she could not stand, she 
ate lying down. Eating occupied her brain. 
Nature had forgiven her the anxiety of ma¬ 
ternity for its pangs. 

Foster’s cause with his mother was hope¬ 
less. Her udder was dry and her attitude to¬ 
wards him ferocious. Such promiscuous suck 
as the lamb gained among the flock was little 
better than starvation to him. His immense 
frame was hard to fill. Content could not 
flavor such meals as his. When taken out to 


'7' r 


74 


SHEEP OF THE SHEPHERD 


nurse, he would wrestle from the detaining 
arms too soon. His energy often scared his 
foster mothers into uncharitable dryness, and 
if they were at large they fled him as the 
plague. When he was a month old, he still 
spurned the bran and clover kept before him 
and waited with impatience for his hard-won 
milk. He grew lean and hungry behind his 
bars and his handsome face with its brown 
eyes and sweeping lashes seemed to gain too 
great prominence for the tardy growth of his 
body. 

One night an unexpected northwest wind 
brought whirling snow. The shed exposures 
were unprotected and the storm beat in, star¬ 
tling the flock into busy grubbing industry. 
Foster’s caged restlessness became redoubled. 
He sent his little shrill penetrating cry abroad 
in desperate and final appeal to his mother. 
She answered him through the storm. An old 
ewe pushing her jealous nose as near as she 
could to the lamb’s untasted plenty, made by 
her strength and persistence a small wedge-like 


FOSTER, THE WRESTLER 


75 


opening between two of the hurdles of his pen. 
Instead of resenting her depredations, Foster 
met her nose encouragingly from within. 
When the ewe’s nose had once entered she did 
not desist until her head was through, and 
then fearful of a trap withdrew it to gain con¬ 
fidence for a second trial. But Foster’s head 
from the other side now filled the opening, 
and by wriggling with all his strength he en¬ 
larged it sufficiently to escape. The flock 
were seeking every stray bit of food in pre¬ 
paration for the blizzard. The lamb, by the 
same sure instinct, was seeking his mother. 
But Harebells had forgotten that she called 
him, and her pen was stronger than his own. 
He had, moreover, no old ewe to make the en¬ 
tering wedge. He succeeded at last in mak¬ 
ing an aperture for his head but his fine broad 
shoulders could not follow. He would not 
retreat but pushed and cried on towards the 
goal of his desire. His mother lay unheeding 
in her fattening content while the blizzard 
blew in on the unadmitted body of the lamb. 


76 SHEEP OF THE SHEPHERD 

The shepherd found him in the early morn 
half buried in snow, and when he picked him 
up, Foster the Wrestler’s head fell limply 
over his shoulder. Michael’s heart, filled 
with the concern of hundreds, felt the contrast 
in a wave of individual tenderness for the 
lamb’s departed strength. 

But the little fellow had only fainted from 
cold and exhaustion. Warmth and the admin¬ 
istration of hot sheep’s milk soon revived him. 
He lay in front of the shepherd’s fire and 
kicked his way back into life with a vigor it 
seemed impossible the blizzard should have 
spared. The shepherd did not know, then, 
that it was nature struggling for the place the 
lamb seemed born so royally to fill. 

Foster no sooner felt his returning pulse 
and got his legs than the shepherd’s fire had 
no more charm for him. He owed his savior 
no gratitude. When Michael was carrying 
him back to his old quarters through the de¬ 
ceitful noontide of the blizzard, the lamb 
slipped from his arms to prostrate himself 



FOSTER, THE WRESTLER 


77 


once more before the only shrine he ever wor¬ 
shipped at. Harebells lay chewing her cud. 
Foster nosed back and forth to find a creep- 
hole in to her. He lifted up his shrill voice 
in vain. His attendant carried him off to his 
old pen. There Foster spent his strength try¬ 
ing to find a way out. But the little pen had 
been reinforced. Weakened by exposure and 
disheartened by his useless efforts, he lay down 
and cried until his shrill tenor broke in a 
pathetic echoless sob. And Foster, the Wres¬ 
tler, born too late, strong, wayward, resistant, 
ceased to fight and was a lamb. 

He now became Eliza’s charge. She it was 
who enticed him to eat bran, she who selected 
for him bouquets of clover from among the 
hay. She alone could persuade his foster 
mothers to stand while he sucked them dry. 
The lamb grew. He was gaunt, to be sure, as 
all lambs are when denied their natural sus¬ 
tenance. But his head and shoulders were 
nobly cast and his carriage firm and proud. 


78 SHEEP OF THE SHEPHERD 

His strength was marvelous, though his voice 
was but the ghost of its old self. 

One hungry March morning, as Foster 
went down on his knees to suckle a large ewe, 
Eliza noticed in the lamb a physical defi¬ 
ciency to which she instantly called the shep¬ 
herd’s attention. 

“He lay all night with nis back buried in 
the snow,” he said reflectively. “I thought 
his struggles on coming to extraordinary. But 
he may come right yet. Give him good care.” 

The shepherdess was sadly aware that the 
lamb’s gaunt frame did her little credit and 
in her anxiety to increase his appetite she gave 
him one day some thinly cut strips of an apple. 
This was a fruit his mother ate with avidity. 
The lamb had Harebell’s tastes as well as her 
face and form, and he was not long in making 
Eliza understand that he could very well man¬ 
age his apples cut into simple fours. The 
apple diet brought about an improvement in 
his consumption of fodder. 

Foster, no longer betraying any desire to 


FOSTER, THE WRESTLER 


79 


seek his mother, was released from his pen and 
allowed to run with the lambs at large. 

But he was a sad and lonely lamb, indiffer¬ 
ent to the general flock, betraying no grati¬ 
tude towards his nurses, seeking no compan¬ 
ionship save that of the big ram. On the 
occasions when Othello was let out for exer¬ 
cise Foster ranged himself alongside, and 
such was the indifference and pride of his 
front that the big fellow forbore to punish 
him. When the parent of the flock had gaped 
and tried muscle and hoof before a keenly 
observant audience ever ready to give him 
ample ring space, he would lie down in the 
sun with Foster couched behind, his baby chin 
resting upon his father’s great hind quarters. 

But despite Eliza’s care and the shepherd’s 
faith, the lamb had not “come right” and it 
was now the edge of spring. 

The Autocrat drove into the yard. He 
culled among others the fattened Harebells. 

“How do you account for the overdevelop¬ 
ment of her lamb?” he asked the shepherd. 


8o 


SHEEP OF THE SHEPHERD 


“Continued indigestion from false pastoral 
conditions often causes a sexual demoraliza¬ 
tion in old ewes.” 

Eliza was feeding her lambs when the sheep 
owner looked in. Foster was down on his 
knees at his best loved meal. 

“Why, the little fellow is defective,” he 
said, with much chagrin. 

And the lamb who had spent all his fine 
forces in his endeavor to live was permitted 
to die with his mother. 






CHAPTER IX 


MARJORIE, THE STARTER 

Little Siberia taxed the shepherd’s judg¬ 
ment greatly. A sheep’s nutriment goes first 
to wool and afterwards to her bodily good. 
Thus the heavy-fleeced stock of Goshen were 
ill-fitted to weather the new conditions. Some 
years back a hardy mountain ram, named 
Peter, had been introduced into the flock. 
His daughter, Peterkin, was the mother of 
Marjorie. This lamb was born at Little 

81 










82 


SHEEP OF THE SHEPHERD 


Siberia and selected to become a permanent 
member of the flock because she wore the 
same short close coat as her dam and grand- 
sire. 

Peterkin was exceedingly tame, but Mar¬ 
jorie was timid. She had a trick of starting 
to her feet and taking flight without apparent 
reason. While the ewe and her lamb were 
penned together, the sight of the mother calm, 
comfortable, unafraid arrested Marjorie’s ex¬ 
cited movements. But when the lamb was 
freed, the startling effect of her hallucinations 
had a most improper and distressing effect on 
her young companions. 

Michael could not help wondering if the 
rats frightened Peterkin’s lamb. Some grain 
had been upset in a corner of her mother’s 
pen, and stable vermin frequented the spot. 
But Old Eph averred that he had seen a rat 
run right under the lamb’s nose and she had 
not flinched. 

“It is strange,” muttered the shepherd, “for 
all my old ewes, under existing conditions, 


MARJORIE, THE STARTER 83 

are throwing themselves, and a tamer dam 
than Peterkin no lamb ever had.” 

Timid as Marjorie was, she was not shy. 
She would stand to let the shepherdess stroke 
her brown velvety nose, edging a little closer, 
and yet a little closer, forgetting her food in 
perfect enjoyment of the caress. She even 
had Peterkin’s trick of licking Eliza’s hand. 
But not even Eliza could come upon the lamb 
unawares, and the pursuit of one of her frisky 
kind was sufficient to cause her to run. Mar¬ 
jorie’s idiosyncrasy was humored for the sake 
of the flock. Sheep need only example to 
become party to the dangers of the chase. 

The spring came and Peterkin took her 
lamb out to pasture. The ewe haunted the 
road fences to see the children as they passed 
in small groups to and from the rural shool. 
Peterkin had been a pet of the children’s at 
Goshen. She could not easily unlearn her 
lesson. A slowly acquired habit becomes in 
sheep as strong as the instinct of safety. 
Just as her ancestors feared the storm so 


84 SHEEP OF THE SHEPHERD 

had Peterkin once feared children. And 
just as the wildest of her kind are the 
tamest before snow, so the rudest and most 
inconsequent protection of a child had become 
to the ewe as a shelter. Childhood had for¬ 
gotten, had deceived her often. The Goshen 
children had once led her onto a railroad 
track and heedlessly left her in front of a 
freight train. The fear of that throbbing en¬ 
gine had often caused her to quake in her 
sleep, and her jaw to tremble with suppressed 
bleatings. But the children were the friends 
of Peterkin. She watched for them. Their 
very roughness was a caress. She ate the 
hedge posies from their hands in preference 
to her pasture. 

Marjorie, beside her, took her education 
well, charming her mother’s friends with her 
frank regard. 

Eliza reproached herself for the oversight 
that preceded the tragedy of Peterkin, but 
Michael blamed the sour soil of Little Si¬ 
beria for the unclean state of the ewe’s blood. 


MARJORIE, THE STARTER 


85 


Looking back the shepherdess could remem¬ 
ber the patient sheep holding aloof with her 
lamb at feeding time instead of pressing 
eagerly forward for her share. She had ac¬ 
counted for Peterkin’s lassitude, as she had had 
to account for the weariness of many another, 
by the consumption of sodden winter vegeta¬ 
tion that the sparseness of the spring pasture 
had tempted her to try. She knew without 
the sense of touch that Peterkin’s ears were 
cold and her nose hot. These symptoms were 
common enough just then. But Eliza did not 
know that Peterkin’s eyes pleaded for help 
between her spells of inertia. And when the 
attention of the shepherdess was removed, the 
ewe’s bodily sickness was so great that hope 
would not renew her appeal and the long 
lashes dropped again over her eyes. Peterkin, 
however, ate her portion, and then retired in 
the company of her lamb to a distant corner. 

The following night on coming home the 
eyes of Peterkin did not seek the shepherdess. 
And the next day the ewe refused her food. 


86 


SHEEP OF THE SHEPHERD 


Eliza, alarmed, examined her carefully, part¬ 
ing the fleece observantly here and there. The 
sheep’s brisket was hard and swollen and in¬ 
flammation was extending fast to all the sur¬ 
rounding tissue. The udder was empty and 
shrunken. Marjorie had had no milk for 
days. 

The shepherd was away at Goshen. There 
was no one else in whose hands Eliza could 
trust the kindly knife. Eliza’s very helpless¬ 
ness hit her like a reproach. And when Peter- 
kin, perceiving its lassitude, nosed her lamb 
anxiously, the shepherdess could not part 
them. She placed the enclosing hurdles round 
them both and mechanically fed to them the 
customary ration for invalid sheep. Mar¬ 
jorie was hungry and attacked the clover blos¬ 
soms with avidity. The mother raised her 
eyes in a last appeal. It was then that Eliza, 
overcome, exclaimed, “I will take care of your 
baby, Peterkin.” The ewe’s long lashes veiled 
her eyes again. She licked the hand of her 
attendant. 


MARJORIE, THE STARTER 87 

In the morning Peterkin lay dead, Mar¬ 
jorie close beside her, ware, yet unaware. 
The lamb had ceased trying to rouse the inani¬ 
mate body, and lay waiting the waking as only 
her kind can wait. 

The primal cause of the death of Peterkin 
remained a mystery. She died of blood poi¬ 
soning. As the shepherd said she was so quiet 
and docile a sheep, so little inclined to take 
alarm that any foreign attack might have 
found her out as she lay chewing the cud, or 
as she stooped to graze. 

Eliza did her best to keep her word to the 
dead mother. No member of the flock was 
ever tamer to its keeper’s hand than Peterkin’s 
orphaned ewe. The love of the dead sheep 
for Eliza was not gone with her life but re¬ 
mained to be reinforced in Marjorie. 

The lamb was at first placed with others 
of her own age. But when each morning dis¬ 
covered the disorder and trapped trouble that 
Marjorie’s night starts caused, she was placed 
alone in her mother’s old quarters. But Mar- 


88 


SHEEP OF THE SHEPHERD 


jorie broke, causing a scare among the general 
flock. A poor ewe was found with her leg 
plaited in her hurdle. She had hung there 
wriggling until her leg was scraped to the 
bone. 

The late fall days had come. Many of the 
early ewes were pregnant. The flock could 
not be allowed to suffer for the vagaries of one 
lamb. As Eliza pondered on this while deftly 
treating the poor ewe’s leg, the cause of the 
mischief stood looking confidingly at her with 
Peterkin’s eyes. 

That night the shepherdess remained with 
the flock. Marjorie came and lay cosily be¬ 
side her, chewing the cud until midnight, 
when she got up, yawned and stretched her¬ 
self. A young lamb coming out of a feed pen 
creep to join his mother found the aperture 
blocked by Marjorie. Without a moment’s 
hesitation he placed his fore feet on her rump. 
Marjorie jumped. The shepherdess, scold¬ 
ing and entreating by turns, endeavored to 
arrest the startled sheep. And when after 


MARJORIE, THE STARTER 89 

much effort she pushed through the jamming 
herd to her favorite’s head, Marjorie halted, 
the tamest lamb in all the flock. She raised 
her mild eyes to Eliza’s face and caressed 
with her tongue the well-known hand. 

In the morning, as Eliza was making her 
tired way to the cottage, a disabled touring 
car stopped in the road that faced the colony 
of sheep sheds. The distance was just great 
enough to enhance the terror of its throbbing 
escapement. From this terrible pursuit Mar¬ 
jorie fled, taking the flock with her. There 
was stampeding, jamming, breaking fence and 
general distress. The truth, losing nothing by 
its slow unfolding, dawned on the shepherd 
and shepherdess at once. 

They both remembered the freight train 
pursuing the mother up the track. And the 
shepherd knew that his old ewe, Peterkin, 
true to his theories on the weakening tenden¬ 
cies of the soil, had fixed in the brain of her 
lamb the echo of her own fear. 

The Autocrat, who had driven into the yard 


9 o 


SHEEP OF THE SHEPHERD 


early that morning, sent out the farm hands 
to try to put the motor on its way before he 
commented on the disordered flock. 

“What have you there? A starter? A sheep 
like that never lacks excuse for fright. She 
is a menace to incoming ewes.” 

So Marjorie started the flock no more. 





CHAPTER X 
NAOMI 


There was warning in the initial fall 
breezes as they veered from the northwest to 
the northeast—first the gale and afterwards 
the snow. The nights were growing cool, the 
mornings chill. Already Bobail had taken to 
ousting Bobbinette from her warm nest in the 
straw. 

The unmerciful culling of the early spring 
had forced the shepherd to select a little flock 


91 



92 


SHEEP OF THE SHEPHERD 


of two-year-olds for breeding. Two rams of 
like age were chosen to run at large with 
these ewes: handsome Brownie, the South- 
down, short, close, compact, slow to anger but 
terrible when aroused, and tall Othello, a 
grade ram, whose dark ancestors came from 
Egypt. Othello was the Southdown’s equal in 
all but weight, but where Brownie held the 
field by self-assurance, Othello gained the day 
by stratagem. 

Brownie, remembering his infant days, had 
not yet weighed his size and power against the 
wishes of the shepherdess, and the natural 
astuteness of the adopted ram, Othello, led 
him to pay Eliza deference because his rival 
did. 

It was against the shepherd’s better judg¬ 
ment to breed ewes before they were thirty 
months old, and among so juvenile a flock the 
presence of Eliza was often required. The 
older stock and the yearlings were, however, 
kept rigorously apart. 

Among these last was little Naomi, the 


NAOMI 


93 


single daughter of the twin-bearing ewe, Grey- 
hampton. Naomi had generously fulfilled the 
promise of her infant days. She was as well 
developed as many a ewe in Michael’s young 
breeding stock, and she was as tame as her 
mother. 

Greyhampton always looked fixedly and 
inquiringly in the face of the shepherdess 
when she was addressed, and Naomi acquired 
the same useful habit. When Naomi’s name 
was spoken, she had both ear and eye to guide 
her and consequently she never failed to re¬ 
spond. But she did not seek Eliza unless the 
invitation were added to the address, and then 
she ran to her, announcing her coming at 
every step until she paused breathless at her 
side. 

Naomi’s speech commenced with the most 
common consonant in sheep usage, m. Her 
voice was so musical and resonant that Eliza 
was often tempted to hold converse with her 
beyond the necessity of routine. The yearling 
listened intently to all that was said to her 


94 


SHEEP OF THE SHEPHERD 


and responded with breathless excitement. 
She made up for her curtailed vocabulary by 
expression and repetition. 

If Eliza said, “Naomi!” Naomi answered, 
“Ma!” 

If Eliza said, “Naomi, come!” Naomi 
came, uttering breathless syllables “Ma! ma! 
ma!” at every step. 

If Eliza said, “Pretty girl!” Naomi re¬ 
sponded by the short declarative sentence, 
“Ma ma.” 

If Eliza said, “You are the prettiest sheep 
in all the flock ” Naomi answered with a word 
for every one of Eliza’s syllables, accented in 
innocent mockery of her own, “Ma ma ma 
ma ma ma ma ma ma ma ma.” 

The ram, Brownie, also had rare intelli¬ 
gence, but it was of a more careless order. He 
astonished the shepherd by singling out his 
ewe and absenting himself from the flock in 
her company. No movement of Brownie’s 
was lost upon Othello. There were many 
flirtatious ladies in the flock that morning who 


NAOMI 


95 


would have welcomed the attentions of the 
brune, but he was alone concerned with his 
rival. For so young a ram, Othello was an 
old campaigner. His attacks were many and 
well directed and always in the enemy’s rear. 
Each sly boost of the tall ram’s head took 
Brownie and his lady further down the hill¬ 
side and nearer the home fold. In vain the 
Southdown turned about to have it out tup 
fashion. Othello avoided direct encounter. 
He did not want to fight. The Southdown was 
handicapped by the presence of his grey-eyed 
Oxford lady and could only turn occasionally 
and threaten with his eye. Othello succeeded 
in driving the pair home. Once there 
Brownie stood at bay, asking no favors. His 
tall assailant rubbed his head in friendly ca¬ 
jolement up and down Eliza’s skirt. 

The shepherdess proved a quick and un¬ 
hesitating arbitrator. She put her arms about 
Othello’s neck and led him to a hurdled space 
reserved for ram reflection. Within was 
peace and the consolation of a good feed. 


96 SHEEP OF THE SHEPHERD 

Brownie strayed back to pasture with his 
ewe. Eliza stood watching them climb the 
hill. The ram levered himself along shoulder 
to shoulder with his mate, forestalling alike 
separation and desertion. On the brow of the 
hill a third sheep joined them, a ewe with a 
tripping excitable step that was especially 
familiar to the watching eyes of the shep¬ 
herdess. A waiting task detained her half- 
formed recognition. But at evening when 
the flock came home, the main body in mass, 
Brownie and his lady far, far behind, Eliza 
saw that their company of two was still in¬ 
truded on by another. It was the yearling, 
Naomi, courting the ram. 

As they came nearer Eliza perceived that 
her favorite’s attentions were by no means 
welcome to the Southdown. He was still en¬ 
slaved by the Oxford lady who now walked 
soberly and affectionately beside him, stoop¬ 
ing occasionally to a blade of grass that he 
might dip and caress her selection. But when 
Naomi bent also and nibbled nose to nose with 


NAOMI 


97 


them, she was shouldered away by the ram. 
The yearling did but take his rough contempt 
for pleasantry. And thus the three came 
slowly home to fold. By the time they 
reached the gate, Brownie’s stock of tolerance 
for the intruder was exhausted. He ceased 
to be his lady’s cavalier and turned brute to 
her rival. Backing out to a considerable dis¬ 
tance he aimed a blow at Naomi which she 
was too young and foolish to avoid. The 
ram’s head caught her square in the ribs. She 
received her correction meekly. Eliza sprang 
forward, and Brownie went jostling by with 
his ewe. 

“Naomi!” 

“Ma!” 

“Are you hurt?” 

“Ma ma ma?” 

“It is a good thing your coat is thick.” 

But Naomi showed how little she needed 
sympathy by trotting after the ram and re¬ 
assuring him in her charming way that she 
had succumbed to his masterful charms. 


9 8 SHEEP OF THE SHEPHERD 

Brownie, however, would have none of her. 
His lady had retired and he was fatigued and 
distant. He did not even condescend to 
roughness. 

At dusk the shepherd’s manipulating fingers 
at the Southdown’s hurdles were persistently 
interfered with by a soft brown nose. 

“Why, what is this?” he said. 

“Ma ma ma ma?” answered Naomi. 

“A yearling?” 

“Ma ma ma?” 

Just then Eliza came forward to take 
charge of the young ewe. 

“I can’t find out how she broke,” she said. 

But Naomi knew how to break again. 
Morning found her couched outside Brownie’s 
pen with her chin propped on a hurdle stave, 
patiently awaiting some sign of the ram’s 
favor. Brownie within lay stretching and 
chewing his cud. 

“How did you get out?” asked the shep¬ 
herdess. 

“Ma ma ma ma ma?” responded Naomi. 


NAOMI 


99 


“She is too young,” mused the shepherd as 
he came up to tend his ram. “And yet sheep 
often know best. But I don’t like the cross. 
Loose Othello.” 

But at sight of the tall, dark ram Naomi 
fled, bleating excitedly as she went. And 
when the fold enclosure stopped her chase she 
turned about, backed her ears and showed 
fight. Othello appealed from force of habit 
to Eliza to intercede for him with the ewe'. 
But anxious to show that he had no fear for 
his ultimate success, he turned and ran aggres¬ 
sively at the restraining hurdles of his rival’s 
pen. It was a most unwise proceeding. 
Brownie cleared the gate and dealt Othello a 
sudden blow which, had it been as fearful as 
it seemed, might have disabled the brune. He 
retreated twisting his neck about in pain. 

Brownie, who was a slow, single-minded 
sheep, now stood staring at Naomi. Not want¬ 
ing to go and fearing to stay, she uttered her 
little plaintive call. The ram placed himself 
abreast of her, licked her face and pawed 



100 SHEEP OF THE SHEPHERD 


the ground in combined appeal and impa¬ 
tience. 

“They will not stray if you feed them out¬ 
side the fold,” said the shepherd. 

Eliza, perceiving that Othella was recover¬ 
ing himself, hastened to follow the shepherd’s 
advice. 

Long before the cold winds of March, 
which were supposed to usher in the bleatings 
of the lamb, there were born to Naomi twin 
ewes so like that it would have been difficult 
to distinguish them, had not one in nursing 
fared a trifle rounder than the other. 

The Autocrat drove into the sheep yard 
one raw Easter morn. Among the lambs of 
Michael’s new flock were the yearling’s 
twins. They had not the sad habit of lying 
in corners, consoling one another for the lack 
of milk. They bestowed their innocent graces 
abroad. Any mother’s back was a fleecy 
throne for them. Twin Number One sat 
perched between the shoulders and ears of the 
dam, Cissy. Twin Number Two scraped her 


NAOMI 


IOI 


impatient fore foot on the beautiful coat 
of the young mother, Elfreeda. Naomi 
spent her time looking wildly about for her 
offspring. Their fearless impartiality, though 
a pain to the mother, was a pleasant voucher 
of vigor to the keepers of the flock. 

“You have gambled on a good cross, there, 
Michael,” said the Autocrat. “We’ll keep 
those twins.” 

“Those,” said the shepherd, “are love 
lambs.” 




CHAPTER XI 
ROME AND EGYPT 

Egypt and her fair twin sister, Rome, 
were born under favorable sheep conditions, 
and came of a parent stock that never worried. 
When her heavy dam stepped on Egypt’s little 
shoe and pinched it out of shape, the lamb 
hardly flinched. The big unconscious Hamp¬ 
shire mother, which could not feel the pain of 
bearing young, cared for them as easily as for 
the mouthful of cud in her cheek. 


102 



ROME AND EGYPT 


103 


Rome and Egypt came with the flock to 
Little Siberia as yearlings. Rome, the blonde, 
was a long sheep, like her mother. She 
accepted her change in life with all the 
splendid quiet resistance of her breed and did 
her sheeply duty, despite the undermining in¬ 
fluences which were soon at work on her. But 
dark Egypt, or Gipsy, the shorter-backed 
sheep, was more rebellious. She refused to 
come within the fold, bearing the flock un¬ 
willing company all day, and at night starting 
through the woods in search of her old home. 
The shepherdess and Rome went early every 
evening to seek Gipsy on her habitual trail 
lest the lengthening shadows should find her 
out and drive her wild. When Gipsy was 
found, she would set her short legs wide apart, 
back her ears and drop her black eyes resent¬ 
fully, and it was only at the instance of her 
sister’s gentle persuasions that her lingering 
footsteps consented to follow her guide’s 
lead. 

One night Eliza forgot the little wanderer 


io 4 SHEEP OF THE SHEPHERD 

from the fold. The fact that Rome stood un¬ 
easily staring into the dark as her keeper came 
away did not impress the worried mind of the 
shepherdess until she heard the mournful cry 
of the blonde twin calling for her sister. 

Gipsy, missing the incentive of the evening 
search, had come up nearer fold. The night 
was full of mist. In the approaching lantern 
light the lost sheep loomed a giant shadow 
starting, shying, running, stopping, afraid of 
her exaggerated self. The shepherdess, fear¬ 
ing to increase the ewe’s alarm, went no fur¬ 
ther, but headed of! for home with her lantern 
turned on full and bright. Rome’s soft, 
mourning note and trustworthy company be¬ 
hind gradually calmed her sister’s fears and 
brought her back to fold. 

It was Gipsy’s last rebellion. The fold of 
Little Siberia, inhospitable as it was, had 
sheltered her from a greater dread. And that 
sufficed to make it home. 

Winter came and the glass told of seventeen 
degrees below zero. The early lambs met the 


ROME AND EGYPT 


105 

full bitterness of the cold. Rome, tender and 
wary mother, forestalled the killing frost in 
her retired nest of straw. Her warm tongue 
worked assiduously at the little tail and ears 
of her blonde baby. But to little stormy Gipsy 
maternal duty was a joy unknown. Her single 
cry startled the sheep fold. Sheep cry for 
minor troubles, but in suffering seldom. Only 
Michael had heard such a cry before. “In¬ 
testinal hydatids,” he said, “from straying late 
in the woods. She must not yean again.” 

Gipsy’s baby had a black face, but his coat 
was of a snow-white unsheeply purity that 
strengthened the shepherd’s surmise. While 
the mother suffered, the baby ram lay freezing 
in a draught. When he got his feet and his de¬ 
layed nutriment, his ears were drooping like 
a spaniel dog’s. The pathetic expression thus 
given him, together with the exceeding purity 
of his fleece, earned for him the name of 
Snowdrop. A week later the tips of Snow¬ 
drop’s frozen ears were broken off in the rub 
of the flock. The bleeding stumps enhanced 


io6 SHEEP OF THE SHEPHERD 


the lamb’s sad attitude which was really 
caused by the freakish behavior of his dam. 

Patience, undeniable attestation of sheeply 
breed, took the place of a good mother to 
Snowdrop. When he went to increase the 
flock’s reputation for fine early lambs, Gipsy 
faced another summer on Little Siberia, 
plainly relieved of a charge. 

Rome’s new coat did not present the bright 
close appearance of the fleece which had been 
taken from her in June but grew out in little 
impoverished tufts like the stray locks that 
have remained in b r ush and brier over winter. 
But the change in her gait was more notice¬ 
able. The grace of youth had deserted her 
step. She became uncertain, shambling, bow- 
legged. She lifted up her fore legs and set 
them down with perceptible care of the knee 
joints. The fine ewe lamb that trotted beside 
her was apparently without a flaw. Gipsy re¬ 
tained the brilliancy of her fleece and was 
attacked in a lesser degree by weakness at the 
knees. But her resentment at life on Little 


ROME AND EGYPT 


107 


Siberia was fading. She grew dejected. Her 
attitude was translated by the other sheep into 
permission to brush her out from the choice 
bits of food. Gipsy accepted the inhospitality 
of the flock with a stoicism that was far more 
affecting than her sister’s meekness. For the 
dark sheep’s voice on rare occasions still lent 
color to the nature of her disease. The plain¬ 
tive, stirring yearning of it lived like a strange 
mid-tune, half disguised by the natural vocal 
swell. 

The instinct that had caused Rome to care 
for the whereabouts or the safety of her twin 
sister developed into a watchfulness for all 
flock alarms. The sight of two rams quarrel¬ 
ing was an affright to her nervous intelligence. 
Her slow mournful note, as like the dove’s as 
any voice could be, gave persistent warning, 
and her awkward legs traveled patiently in 
search of someone to check the fray. If the 
flock trespassed, Rome came back to fold 
alone, true and prompt informant, ready to 
become a faithful guide. Were a little lamb 


io8 SHEEP OF THE SHEPHERD 


trapped in his creep, Rome cried for aid. She 
could not without concern watch the giddy- 
pated bumps of two childless ewes at the 
approach of spring. And whereas the shep¬ 
herd heard Gipsy’s retrogression in her voice, 
he saw Rome’s through her sharpened obser¬ 
vation. The two sheep were marked, but ow¬ 
ing to their successful lambs and the weight of 
their second year fleece, they were again 
wintered. Lack of lime in the soil was ad¬ 
judged the cause of their weak knees, and 
their failing looks were forgiven for their 
productiveness. 

But this judgment did not tally with the 
shepherd’s. By the dark sheep’s voice and the 
timid alarm of her blonde sister he knew he 
owed them the kindness that all good shep- 
herdry gives the failing members of a flock. 

Another winter passed over the woes of 
Rome and Egypt. It was less cold than the 
previous one. Both sheep ate well. Rome 
was in touch with all the happenings of the 
flock and her warning came at all hours of the 


ROME AND EGYPT 


109 


day and the night. Gipsy spoke twice during 
the season; once before snow when she was 
very hungry, and once when her second 
lamb was born. I was present then and saw 
the shepherd hurry away. Old Eph with his 
simple candor called the sheep’s note good 
music. And if good music will produce 
strong mental pictures, he was right. For 
when Gipsy cried, it was as if a rosary told 
music on its beads. 

Rome’s baby was again a credit to the flock, 
and the shrinking mother had milk to nurse it 
well. But after that cry, there stood beside 
Gipsy a little unnatural blown figure, fit sub¬ 
ject for the trochar before it had ever grazed. 

A hasty glance at the new-born lamb in the 
dim light of evening deceived the shepherds 
into believing that it was too full of milk, and 
Gipsy’s udder bore testimony to that opinion. 

In the morning Gipsy’s baby was dead, and 
the mother stood making no lament. The little 
body had not shrunk and within it was found 
a hydatid the size of a goose’s egg. 


iio SHEEP OF THE SHEPHERD 


When the Autocrat culled Gipsy in the 
early spring he said to the shepherd, “Better 
take the twin sister, too.” 

Rome’s strength, it was found, had been 
drained by parasites of a commoner order. 
But on Gipsy’s intestines were strung full half 
a score of hydatids, which one by one her 
misery had told. 






CHAPTER XII 
BIG BILLY 

Big Billy's great-great-grandsire came 
from England. He was a fine ram but never 
permitted more than a limited monarchy. 
Big Billy possessed the flock, his keepers and 
the Autocrat. And there were occasions 
when Billy’s strong sense of possession passed 
the boundaries of home and the limit of the 
law. The ram’s propensity for breaking fence 


hi 






112 SHEEP OF THE SHEPHERD 

did not alarm the shepherd greatly; for he 
knew Billy’s kin and had watched their youth 
and high spirits sober into good sheeply 
routine in the second year. 

In the meantime Big Billy’s flagrancies 
caused quite as much amusement as dread. 
There was nothing Billy resented as much as 
inattention. Not only was he accustomed to 
the best food at regular periods, but any de¬ 
sire on his part to be friendly with his keepers 
was strictly respected. Hurried or careless 
attendants were very apt to receive tup chas¬ 
tisement in the rear. To Eliza he was always 
a baby. She would turn good-temperedly to 
receive the bunt of his woolly head upon her 
open palms and tell him what a fine boy he 
was. Billy, to do him justice, was never 
above the softer feelings. He would bleat 
acquiescence to the praise of the shepherdess 
and trot happily along by her side. 

Old Eph was bringing a wheelbarrow of 
kale to the cottage one early day in spring 
when Big Billy met him in the road. The ram 


BIG BILLY 


ii3 

helped himself, distributing, in princely fash¬ 
ion, much more than he consumed. The stable 
hand threw his soft hat in the thief’s face. 
Billy cared nothing for that. Nonchalant 
and assured, he had his way, while Old Eph 
bore him unwilling company and begrudged 
admiration. 

On the afternoon of the same day, stimu¬ 
lated by his diet of kale, Big Billy leaped 
lightly over his boundary fence into Griffin’s 
rye field. The grass was not advanced. The 
rye was young and tender. Billy dispas¬ 
sionately cropped it. Griffin’s wife, coming 
across to protect the crop, cried, “Go away! 
I hate sheep, anyway.” Billy had never lis¬ 
tened to language like that before, but he 
understood enough of its purport by the 
woman’s attitude. Backing out deliberately, 
for good aim, he ran at her and knocked her 
down. She fell easily on soft spongy ground, 
but the ram’s offence was most humbly apolo¬ 
gized and atoned for by his owner, and Billy 
was restrained for awhile. 


11 4 SHEEP OF THE SHEPHERD 

Eliza will not soon forget an escapade of 
Big Billy’s that nearly cost him his life. He 
passed one day with one of his easy sudden 
breaks over the fence into the main road. He 
was amusing himself with the hedgeways 
when the shepherdess arrived in hot haste. A 
motor was coming speeding around the bend 
to meet the express at the country station. At 
sight of his kind keeper, for pet sheep rarely 
miss a chance to show off, Billy backed out 
elaborately, prepared to butt the car. Eliza 
snatched from her dress a red handkerchief 
which she carried about her for a danger sig¬ 
nal on the farm. She waved her improvised 
flag in front of the flying machine. The blow 
which Billy meant for the motor grazed her 
from behind and shook her on her feet, but she 
managed to catch the ram deftly about the 
neck and drag him to the roadside bank. 
There they both remained long after the 
motor had passed. Eliza was assuaging her 
excitement in relief, while the ram, inno¬ 
cently pleased at being tete-a-tete with his 


BIG BILLY 


US 

keeper on forbidden pasture, grazed at her 
knee. 

When Big Billy was three years old, the 
Autocrat wished him to compete for a prize. 
The ram had lost much of his freakishness. 
He carried himself in the conscious manner 
most becoming to handsome stock. His fleece 
was the prescribed texture and color. His 
ears and legs were beyond dispute. His fine 
eyes looked out from a brown face whose soft 
tones resembled the sepia clouds in a photo¬ 
graphed sky. Only the instinctive knowledge 
of a keeper of flocks could trace a difference 
between Billy and his great-great ancestor, 
the imported Southdown. That difference 
was plain to Michael. He saw it in the too- 
fine ears where the veins were traceable. He 
felt it in the still childish ways of the grown 
ram. 

“He is cursed with the drawbacks of the 
soil and the sensitiveness of inbreeding,” he 
said. “If he goes to the show we shall lose 
him.” 


ii 6 SHEEP OF THE SHEPHERD 


But the Autocrat would not be overruled. 

“Then send a wether with him,” advised 
the shepherd. 

But the attendance of Big Billy’s fat 
devoted stable companion and target was dis¬ 
carded lest he might distract the showman’s 
eye from the ram. 

Big Billy was fed up, his fleece was 
groomed, his hoofs polished, and he was care¬ 
fully packed and shipped to a distant city. 
As he was the sheep owner’s only exhibit, no 
keeper was sent to care for him. 

The ram was rocked and shunted and 
snorted on his way to the fair. The slats of 
his crate, at first an indignity, became a wel¬ 
come shelter from unfamiliar sights and 
sounds. Instead of being kindly led, he was 
shoved into his stall on the fair grounds. No 
sheep like to be shoved. Some sheep will not 
be shoved. It was Billy’s first experience of 
the kind. He made a sharp turn which was 
forestalled and he found himself in a stable 
where decomposing manure betrayed itself 


BIG BILLY 


ii 7 

under the surface straw. The ram, accus¬ 
tomed to clean bedding, showed his distaste by 
jumping over the tall door. The nearest 
beaten road was the race track. With sheeply 
instinct Billy took to it. He won some admira¬ 
tion ere he was caught. But it was not the 
admiration for which he had been sent to the 
fair—and which was the just due of such dis¬ 
tinction of beauty and blood as his. 

Billy was again shoved into his ill-smelling 
stable, but before the door was closed upon 
him, he put his disrespectful attendant out in 
a manner that was not as foreign to the man as 
shoving was to Billy. The interested crowd 
outside could not resist a laugh. It had been 
better for Billy had that laugh been re¬ 
strained. 

The irate attendant came at midnight to the 
ram’s stall. Billy, thirsty and downhearted 
after his useless chase, did not notice the in¬ 
trusion until something cold was pressed 
against his ear. The mad ringing of an alarm 
clock caused the sheep to jump in the air. All 


118 SHEEP OF THE SHEPHERD 


means of escape was now cut off. Billy faced 
his tormentor, not to fight but to appeal. The 
man laughed. “Aha, my fine buck! I don’t 
think you will take first prize.” Worse than 
the clock’s alarm was the display of such 
anger unappeased. A sheep seeking to escape 
an enemy turns tail, a sheep knowing that 
escape is hopeless hides its face. Billy re¬ 
tired to a distant corner and turned his face 
to the wall. 

The next day the excitement of the horse 
racing, the music and the caresses of the crowd 
who stopped to look at him through his bars, 
put the ram on his mettle. He made a fair 
front. 

But the thirst caused by his exercise of the 
day before had not been assuaged because his 
water was not fit, and at night he lay down un¬ 
able to eat his hay. When the attendant came 
in Billy did not wait to hear the clock, but 
trembling, put himself in his corner and 
turned his face away. 


BIG BILLY 


1 19 

Still the blood of the ram came up each 
day, and Big Billy took a first prize. 

But when he returned to the farm, his pride 
dropped from him like a garment; and the 
shepherd, after looking him over, knew that 
the sheep’s heart was broken. 

Big Billy’s satisfaction in his reunion with 
the flock was matter for doubt. He was blind 
to flirtatious ewes. He never chastised a 
young ram. He followed the flock in the rear 
with rounded back and labored gait. Dis¬ 
satisfied with the pasture within his easy 
reach, he lay down without attempt to search 
for better. The ram’s grain ration was in¬ 
creased. He ate it with avidity one day and 
left it the next 

The winter passed and another summer was 
well on its way and there was so little change 
in Billy’s good looks that the Autocrat talked 
again of preparing the ram for show. 

“Billy will not attend another show,” said 
the shepherd. 


i 2 o SHEEP OF THE SHEPHERD 


The sheep owner laughed. He well knew 
the flock keeper’s love for Billy and thought 
Michael spoke as he wished instead of as he 
thought. 

During August Billy’s close fleece lost its 
vigor. It refused to spring against the hand 
and remained tamely parted like soft hair. 

One close muggy day when the Autocrat 
drove in to give instructions about his prize 
ram, the shepherd called his nearer attention 
to the Southdown. 

Big Billy was lying down at pasture. He 
greeted his visitors with a cough. It was not 
a prolonged cough or a vigorous one. It was 
a reluctant painful lung confession. No 
shepherd who has once heard it fails to recog¬ 
nize that sad and empty sound. 

Big Billy’s left lung was found to bo 
tubercled and grown to his ribs. 

‘Take no chances,” said the Autocrat, “on 
members of the flock that have stabled with 
this ram.” 



CHAPTER XIII 
LITTLE BILLY 


Little Billy was found beneath some 
maimed sheep in a freight car. He had been 
born on the way to the great markets. When 
the car was opened he was still alive and shap¬ 
ing his sad little mouth for milk. It was not 
in the Autocrat’s creed to encourage unfortu¬ 
nate lambs, but this one he put in his overcoat 
pocket. 

Little Billy lived the hours on the long dis¬ 
tance train with marvelous persistency, but 


121 



122 SHEEP OF THE SHEPHERD 


by the time he arrived at the sheep farm the 
candle of his life was almost snuffed. A hasty 
draught of sheep’s milk revived him. But he 
was so weakened from the long fast that his 
first nutriment brought on cholera-infantum 
and it became necessary to dose him with 
chalk and catechu. 

Ewe’s milk was scarce, for the lambing 
season was over. The lamb received cow’s 
milk, to which the resourceful Eliza added a 
fresh beaten egg. The little black face soon 
began to lose its woebegone look, and the grey 
fleece to gain pride. 

Little Billy’s intelligence became a by-word 
with his fellow boarders, Michael and the 
farm help. They placed the little ram, to 
shield him from the draught, in a box. The 
elaborate task of bestowing his legs neatly 
within it occupied many an hour of his infant 
days. Often after doubling his knees and 
dropping on his haunch he found part of 
his body unaccommodated. There was much 
rearranging and scuffling of his ungainly mem- 


LITTLE BILLY 


123 


bers, and at this familiar noise Old Eph would 
say, “Little Billy is going to bed.” The lamb’s 
untiring industry in getting himself comfort¬ 
ably tucked up was looked upon with far 
more leniency than his early rising. Michael 
had the good shepherd habit of getting abroad 
at break of day, but Little Billy’s clattering 
hoofs and bleat for breakfast rarely failed to 
set the men grumbling for their last comfort¬ 
able hour. 

When the little ram was old enough, an 
effort was made to change his quarters to those 
of the flock. He was now so large that he 
could not lie in his box, but it was too old a 
friend to be abandoned so he lay on top re¬ 
gardless of the uncomfortable edges which 
seamed his fleece and often dug into his pelt. 
This beloved box was put outside the door one 
day and never again admitted to the hut. Day 
by day it was carried a step nearer to the 
fold as a sort of gradual education to a larger 
world. But it was hard work accustoming 
Little Billy to live with the sheep. 


124 SHEEP OF THE SHEPHERD 

Often the shepherd opened his door in the 
morning to find the ram stretched across the 
threshold. This habit was the cause of a mis¬ 
hap. Rube, the woodman, had found a stray 
terrier. Rube loved dogs almost as well as 
Eliza loved sheep, and one night he sneaked 
his pet into the hut with him. In the morning 
when the door was opened the terrier dis¬ 
covered an animal with a pretentious coat 
which did not stir at his warning growl. The 
dog, incensed at such stupidity, had no hesita¬ 
tion in taking off a piece of Little Billy’s ear. 
Eliza, who was never far off in case of trouble, 
answered the piteous bleat in person. She 
dressed the ear and the jealous terrier was 
banished forever from the fold. 

Little Billy’s tame fearlessness was his 
danger. Very soon after the dog mishap, the 
fast flying wheels of the Autocrat’s rashly 
driven cart caught one of his hind hoofs and 
pinched it badly. 

Thus, lame behind and with half an ear, 
Little Billy took his pxacq among the flock 


LITTLE BILLY 


125 


looking the warrior he was not. His black 
face always had the sad look of the motherless 
lamb. He was rather undersized and his 
fleece was short. But he had two prime 
requisites for breeding. He would eat fodder 
until he was obliged to stand on his hind legs 
in shameful confession of sea-sickness, and he 
was never known to butt his keepers or to hurt 
a ewe. 

Little Billy was hospitably inclined towards 
strangers of his kind. Michael said that his 
shepherd’s housing had taught the ram to 
share his meals. But Little Billy was a moun¬ 
tain sheep. The ways for mountain sheep are 
many and diverse. And I preferred to think 
that nature, teaching him to bear bravely in¬ 
evitable separation from his kind yet suffered 
him to keep the hope of reunion. Certain it is 
that Little Billy’s heart was open to every new¬ 
comer. He met them. He escorted them. 
He made plain to them the whereabouts of 
the food, the salt, the water. At night he took 
them to his separate pen to share his bed. 


126 SHEEP OF THE SHEPHERD 


This trait of Little Billy’s was most notice¬ 
able in the case of a babyish Canada lamb 
who came to the flock to be raised on approval 
for stock purposes. The lamb’s name was 
Johnny. Little Billy made a brother of him. 
It was a strange sight to see this Johnny, who, 
fleece included, was twice his guardian’s size, 
put himself completely under the sway of the 
little ram. They ate together, they walked to¬ 
gether, they slept together. This familiarity 
only pointed the dissimilarity of their habits 
and dispositions: Little Billy never joined 
Johnny in his capricious raps at his keepers, 
or his sudden onslaughts at strangers visiting 
the flock. 

Little Billy was eighteen months old when 
Johnny was but a yearling. Though it was 
high dry September, no determination had yet 
been come to about permitting the gallantries 
of either of the young rams. They stood with¬ 
out, watching the three-year-old Denmark be¬ 
laboring his flippant unruly ewes. Little 
Billy lifted his four feet one after the other 


LITTLE BILLY 


127 


in discomfort at the sight, and rubbed his ear 
against Johnny’s head for sympathy. Johnny, 
with his eyes still on Denmark, took the fence. 
Little Billy followed. Rage was uppermost 
in the heart of the Canada lamb. He at once 
engaged the senior ram, who was not more 
than two-thirds his size. And Little Billy, 
though making no pretence to the good looks 
of Denmark, was not long in assuring the ewes 
that he could be a kinder and a sweeter mate. 
And so alert and successful was he that the 
flock went over to his cause. In the meantime 
Johnny, a firm, though unconscious comrade, 
never left his post of defence. 

The shepherdess, spying the two forbidden 
rams in Denmark’s fold and most anxious to 
prevent miscrossed breeds, attempted to re¬ 
lease the older ram from Johnny’s engaging 
bout. The Canada baby, who had never 
learnt respect for his keepers, threw Eliza 
full length on the ground. It was then that 
Little Billy picked a quarrel with his brother. 

When help arrived, there was the strangest 


128 SHEEP OF THE SHEPHERD 


buck fight going on that the shepherds had 
ever seen. Johnny was still pommeling away 
at Denmark, and Little Billy was giving the 
big yearling vigorous side raps to attract his 
attention towards himself. Johnny laid every¬ 
thing at Denmark’s door and hit the harder. 

The trespassing rams were turned out, 
Little Billy still aiming nasty blows at his 
companion. But Johnny’s perfect stomach 
was no more disturbed by his comrade’s in¬ 
gratitude than it was by his offence against 
Eliza. 

“So much for my experiment,” said the 
Autocrat when he drove around. “I shall! 
doubtless have the pleasure of culling most of 
his lambs next spring.” 

But Michael, though he took Little Billy’s 
life, did not fail to do him justice. The strain 
of the mountain ram was the only strain that 
survived Little Siberia. 



CHAPTER XIV 
THE LILY LAMB 

ONE afternoon when the sheep were settling 
near the homeward path, the shepherdess al¬ 
most stumbled over a new-born lamb in the 
bracken. No sheep claimed it. A dark spot 
over its heart, shaped not unlike the cup of a 
flower, marred the purity of its ivory coat, 
but the rich black brown color disposed on its 
face, and deep blue eyes surrounded by dark 


129 




130 SHEEP OF THE SHEPHERD 


curling lashes gave it a touching expression. 
An under lash, turned in too far, had forced 
a tear. 

As Eliza pressed the truant eyelash into 
place, she recalled a little sheep which had 
hesitated to follow the flock that morning. 
This ewe had run back several times, had 
scraped the ground impatiently with her fore 
foot, had smelt her own trail, and then lifting 
her head high had licked her lips in anticipa¬ 
tion of her young’s first kiss. But Eliza had 
laid these actions to the nervousness of inex¬ 
perience and the shearling had melted in 
among the flock. 

The shepherdess waited for the cry of the 
lamb at her feet, hoping that its appeal might 
discover the mother. But the lamb in its nest 
of fern made no complaint, and when the 
sheep began to drift homewards Eliza picked 
up the little burden and followed. 

Old Eph came curiously forward. He felt 
encouraged by the unusually pleasant expres¬ 
sion of the shepherdess. 


THE LILY LAMB 


131 

“It’s a lily lamb,” he said. 

“It is fair,” conceded Eliza, and moved on. 
The indifference of Eliza for Old Eph is 
plainest in her lambs’ contempt for him. 

“There’s the shadow of the lily cup over its 
heart,” said the stable hand. 

Michael always said shepherdry had cured 
him of superstition, but Old Eph was still full 
of the stories he claimed to have gathered 
from shepherds as a boy. 

“Lily lambs don’t come to stay,” he went 
on. “If they do, the cup grows out. But 
when they go they never go alone.” 

Eliza made no reply. She knew that the 
mark would grow out if the lamb lived. 
And as for company to die with, that wouldn’t 
be hard to find on Little Siberia. So she set 
about looking for the mother of the lily lamb. 

The sheep were by this time packing 
eagerly towards their evening accommodation. 
In the uplifted head of a young ewe named 
Wild Cherry, the shepherdess recognized the 
expression of the shearling whose unlooked- 


132 SHEEP OF THE SHEPHERD 

for actions had attracted her attention that 
morning. 

Wild Cherry was found to have milk and 
was stabled with the lamb. But she gave it 
only half-hearted recognition and begged for 
the company of the flock. 

The shepherd came to look at the ewe that 
had yeaned out of season. For although the 
Indian suns had pledged the death of the 
grass by the stained leaf, the grey herald of 
the lamb was still weeks distant. “False 
vigor,” said the shepherd. “This pasture 
won’t support it. I must watch the ewe. If I 
were you, Eliza, I’d let the lamb go.” 

“It’s as easy to feel that way about one lamb 
as another,” said Eliza. 

The lamb made no effort to help itself. It 
crawled under the belly of the young ewe, 
causing her to stumble in her effort not to 
tread on it. When placed in a more definite 
position, the lamb brushed the nipple with 
its nose and struggled to its feet. And yet the 
lily lamb was neither poor nor weak. It stood 


THE LILY LAMB 


133 


up sweet and undesiring beside its mother, 
more like a companion to her than a child. 

“You won’t get lily lambs to drink,” said 
Old Eph sententiously. 

Eliza thought it had been too long without 
its first nutriment and tried the spoon. In di¬ 
recting the spoon much milk was spilled and 
the rest the lily lamb permitted to escape from 
its mouth. A ewe’s first milk is rich and ad¬ 
hesive. The beauty of the lamb’s downy 
muzzle was soiled, the dark blue eye looked 
tearfully on the shepherdess, for the trouble¬ 
some lash had turned in again. 

The lamb lay with its mother all night. In 
the morning Wild Cherry jumped her high 
fence and rejoined the flock. She was caught 
twice a day to render the same service to her 
lamb that the shepherd’s cow might have 
done. 

Despite the lamb’s distaste for food, Eliza 
persisted with small frequent doses of the 
ewe’s milk. The pretty baby fleece began to 
show signs of mauling, and it was evident the 


i 3 4 SHEEP OF THE SHEPHERD 

lamb feared the coming of the shepherdess. 
The effect of her own patience was rendering 
the nurse conscience-stricken when at three 
o’clock one morning, thirty-six hours after its 
birth, the lily lamb turned to its food with the 
look of a thing tamed against its own judg¬ 
ment. The unruly eyelash, which would still 
turn in, made it hard for Eliza to believe the 
lamb was not crying. 

When it was graduated from a nursing to a 
bottle baby, the lamb was fed three times a 
day, more frequent attention being an em¬ 
barrassment to Eliza when afield with her 
ewes. The loneliness of the home fold, added 
to its heavier meals, did not aid the lamb’s 
weak digestion. The shepherdess could not 
but notice the falling off, and longed for the 
winter days when she need not forsake her 
charge. 

By that time the lily lamb had reached the 
doubtful honor of being a kitchen invalid, and 
from drinking half a pint of milk three times 
a day had come back to a teaspoonful each 


THE LILY LAMB 


135 


hour. Old Eph often passed the door and 
looked in; but he did not dare to say a word 
for the nursing of the lily lamb had become 
almost a passion with Eliza. The lamb had 
taken its growth but slowly, and it shrank in 
the false indoor atmosphere. Its mouth was 
pathetically ugly from the application of food 
and medicine. It lay down so much that the 
fleece on its little flanks was always crushed. 

When the real lambing season came the 
fires were lit in the shepherd’s hut for chilled 
weaklings. The farm yard was filled with 
maternal murmurs and infant demands. The 
shepherd was busy at his favorite occupation 
of discovering lamb traps. No misplaced 
hurdle, no tiny creep hole into foreign pens, 
no crack between a beam and a barn wall was 
too trivial to be ignored. Unexpected new¬ 
comers had been known to stray into the 
strangest places to die just born. Eliza’s ser¬ 
vices were constantly required. Often to 
breast the work of the sheep yard she reached 
her kitchen nurseling five minutes past the 


136 sheep of^the shepherd 

hour. And even this small delay in the 
course of a week had crowded out several of 
the lily lamb’s meals. When Eliza first 
brought it to the kitchen, it could toddle at her 
heels. Now it had to be lifted and carried to 
and from its bed in the corner. The necessity 
for haste in the performance of her tasks and 
a growing resentment for her own limitations 
often rendered the touch of the shepherdess 
ungentle. But this could not hurt the lamb, 
for the only grace now left to it was the pride 
of its nurse. A few moments of her own neg¬ 
lect had power to wreak on Eliza a more last¬ 
ing and reproachful ugliness than Nature 
will ever attribute to sheep. The lily lamb 
had not at one time hoped for life. The 
awakened desire was fulfilled in suffering. 

The kitchen fire was kept alight, the copper 
kettle filled. The night lamp burnt on the 
table. A bottle of sweet oil, a liquid sedative, 
a cordial and a little spoon were ranged con¬ 
veniently in its ray. At midnight Eliza turned 
in, tired and shivering with the chill of com- 


THE LILY LAMB 


137 


ing snow. The lamb’s nourishment was due 
at three. It was four before the shepherdess, 
conscience-stricken even in her dazed awaken¬ 
ing, was on her feet again. She knew that her 
body in its physical weariness and insufficiency 
had at last harnessed her soul to its disgrace, 
and spiritual retreat had given up the life for 
which she craved. The world outside was 
white and the air thick with falling flakes. 
The lily lamb waited in its corner. Its head 
was twisted round and under to make a pillow 
for its heart. The shepherdess sought to dis¬ 
pose the little body. The head rolled back 
again—the picture of a thing forgot. Eliza 
recalled her first buoyancy at the unexpected 
discovery of the beautiful lamb, her ecstasy 
when it lent itself to her care. The finality of 
the lily lamb’s departure sharpened both joys 
into pain. 

The Autocrat visited Little Siberia on the 
day the lily lamb died. He marveled at the 
sentimental patience of experienced shep¬ 
herds. “Cut off the mother,” he said. 


138 SHEEP OF THE SHEPHERD 


“She’ll gain at least a month next season and 
the spring market will be crediting us with 
fall lambs.” 

The shepherd sought out Wild Cherry. 
She was lying dead on her bed of straw, her 
head twisted round like a wryneck bird’s. 





CHAPTER XV 
BOY 


Eliza found Little Billy’s grandchild at 
midnight one early January. Its father was 
of the same pure domestic breed as its grand¬ 
mother, but the little ewe betrayed from birth 
a photographic likeness to her mountain 
grandsire. Welcome, the young dam, was 
one of the best nourished sheep in the flock. 
Old Eph volunteered a reason for this. Wel¬ 
come had a voice which could stretch for a 
full half minute without breaking, and she 


139 



140 SHEEP OF THE SHEPHERD 


used the advice contained in the best shepherd 
manual of all—Ask, and it shall be given you. 
But no one realized the range of the sheep’s 
vocal expression till Welcome began to talk 
to her lamb, and the shepherdess felt quite 
satisfied to leave the little thing to the caresses 
and clever instruction of its mother. 

But in the morning, much to her surprise, 
Eliza found another lamb in Welcome’s pen, 
a brother to the little ewe. It had arrived un¬ 
expectedly in the early morning hours. Its 
fleece was still damp, but it claimed the 
shepherdess. It has always been a matter of 
thrilling interest to me to see how the new 
lambs accept Eliza. 

The shepherdess named the twins Boy and 
Girl, and thus they were recorded. Rarely 
are twin brother and sister such a contrast. 
Girl’s eyes were dark blue, Boy’s a solemn 
brown. The grey undergrowth in Girl’s 
spotted fleece was a surety. Boy’s coat was 
pure and creamy. Girl was a little long in 
her dark hairy legs and ears, and a bit tented 


in the spine. Boy was saddle-backed with 
extremities of rare proportion. His nose and 
ears had been carefully dipped in the exact 
Southdown coloring. His face was orna¬ 
mented with pompoms as delicate as the fluffy 
dandelion seed before it blows, and his chubby 
brown legs were warmly stockinged to the 
hoofs. Boy was the shepherd’s promise, the 
grade lamb with the Down beauty and the 
vigorous blood of the mountain ram. 

Eliza entered Welcome’s pen to discover 
if he was having his full share of mother-love 
and nutriment. She found the ewe very 
kindly disposed towards her last twin, but Boy 
no sooner smelt his dinner than he promptly 
got to his feet and looked at Eliza. The little 
ram’s front teeth were examined; for inflamed 
gums will sometimes discourage a suckling. 
Two of Boy’s front teeth were come, two 
others were peeping. The gums were cool; 
and pink. The shepherdess started the flow 
of milk with her finger and thumb and forced 
the lamb to taste it. Boy rose from his knees, 


i 4 2 sheep of the shepherd 

shook his head and looked at Eliza ex¬ 
pectantly. There was one other shepherd 
resort to teach a new lamb to drink—the 
heated vessel and spoon. But Boy acted as if 
the milk were nauseous. He did not let it 
trickle back from the corners of his mouth 
like a lamb who could not swallow, but put it 
out deliberately with his tongue. The 
shepherd began to talk of pre-natal indiges¬ 
tion. In despair Eliza carried her charge into 
the pen of another mother, one of the pure 
bred dames the lamb’s grandfather had ad¬ 
mired so much. Boy let out such a piteous 
wail that the shepherdess, frightened into for¬ 
getting the invariable silence of suffering 
sheep, set him hastily on the ground. The 
little ram immediately found his own way to 
his foster mother and Eliza, marveling, held 
the ewe about the neck while he satisfied him¬ 
self. 

It became a custom to take Boy among the 
flock three times a day for a change of diet 
For the rest he was trusted to take his natural 


BOY 


i43 


share beside Girl. But it soon became evident 
the three meals a day that Eliza superintended 
were all Boy got. This was evinced by the 
fact that Welcome had more milk than Girl 
wanted, by the crushed marks on the lamb’s 
fleece that refused to spring back after 
handling, and above all by his constant and 
patient outlook for Eliza. The shepherdess 
redoubled her efforts to find Boy more meals 
abroad. She even went to the length of giv¬ 
ing some of Welcome’s milk to the lamb of a 
pure Down ewe in order to arrange for a 
steady extra meal for Little Billy’s grandson. 

At home in his pen Boy left his mother and 
sister to their own devices while he pushed his 
face through the hurdle to watch for Eliza. 
When he grew a little bigger he took to jump¬ 
ing through a gap level with his nose. Often 
in the night Eliza would wake to the cry of 
Welcome announcing the fact that Boy had 
left his natural protection, and she invariably 
found him lying outside the pen of one of his 
foster mothers. The shepherdess, counting 


144 SHEEP OF THE SHEPHERD 

the lamb too young to be on sheep-world 
alone, blocked the gap in the hurdle. Boy used 
his mother’s back, as she was lying down, as a 
step towards clearing the fence. A little hole 
was made in Welcome’s hurdle. Boy was 
taught its whereabouts by being shoved 
through it every night into safety. He always 
came out again promptly and never used it of 
his own accord. His persistence, the fact 
that he made friends easily and never effected 
an unlawful entrance into other pens, soon 
encouraged the shepherds to let Boy abide 
where he would. 

When the culls were drafted from the 
Down ewes for the early spring market and 
their sorrowing mothers called for them in 
vain, Boy was on hand at each pen in turn with 
soft responses and ready to give material re¬ 
lief. A gentleness equal to that of his moun¬ 
tain grandsire endeared him to the bereaved 
dams and made lighter the work of the shep¬ 
herds in handling them. 

The lamb took no heed of his dam Wei- 


BOY 


i45 


come, though she often nosed him wistfully 
when the flock was let out to drink or to exer¬ 
cise. But at sight of Girl, Boy’s sweet temper 
vanished. He was even known to hunt his 
twin up and pick a quarrel in the most pas¬ 
sionate way by a head-to-head fight. When 
Girl’s well-nourished indolence threatened to 
lose her the day, and Boy would not desist, his 
sister settled the matter by a foul hit. Boy 
made many friends outside his kin, and the 
pleasant relations established between the 
lamb and some of the Down ewes existed long 
after his weanling days. It was no uncommon 
sight to see one of his foster mothers standing 
with figure ducked and gently animated tail 
while the lamb affectionately trimmed up her 
fleece by cleverly selecting and gently pulling 
with his teeth the feathery sprays and untidy 
orts of the hay. 

At the break of the winter, loads of corn 
stalks came up from Goshen. The roots being 
gone and the spring growths not established, 
they formed a cooling change from hay and 


146 SHEEP OF THE SHEPHERD 


grain. At Goshen these stalks would have 
been cut up and fed in large troughs, but 
Michael fed extravagantly, tying up the great 
bundles to fences and hurdles where sheep 
could gather round. So he carpeted Little 
Siberia’s hungry fields with the waste from 
Goshen. While the corn stalks were being 
fed, the lambs rushed before the rustle like 
scudding leaves before a storm. Only Boy 
stood his ground. Old Eph, clearing up be¬ 
tween meals, with a lime pail in one hand, and 
a bunch of the more cumbersome stalks like 
fagots in the other, found occasion to com¬ 
mend the shepherds for the keeping of cross¬ 
bred foster lambs like Boy to settle the flock. 
Boy’s keepers received Old Eph’s certainty of 
the impurity of the lamb’s strain with some¬ 
thing like a mental jolt. Although they knew 
of it, they could not themselves perceive it. 
But it was only when Eliza was very tired and 
the shepherd most downcast that they feared 
the compelling influence of the Autocrat. 

Eliza relieved her mind by advising the 


BOY 


H7 


stable hand to keep his eye on his horse which 
was hitched in the sheep yard to assist in 
clearing up. Eph’s horse was aged, but he 
had his moments of pedigree pride and a great 
desire to emulate the lambs. Eliza had no 
sooner spoken than his head went up so high 
at their scutter and gambol that his tie rope 
snapped at a worn place. And even then the 
shepherds did not fear his spirit half so much 
as the cart behind him. All the little ones 
managed to skip safely away but Boy, and in 
standing his ground, as usual, the lamb was 
thrown and apparently crushed by the wheel. 
He lay quite still beside a brick. Eliza picked 
him up without hope, but seeing that he was 
alive, gave him oil in anticipation of internal 
injuries. With the lamb still in her arms, she 
sat down in one of the commonest arm chairs 
known to Little Siberia, a half barrel filled 
with straw, and the caressing expression of 
the things she would have liked to say in her 
grief the lamb drank in with his eyes to down 
the nausea of the slippery dose. But he mani- 


i 4 8 sheep of the shepherd 

fested no sign of distress from the accident 
either then or later. It was decided that the 
cart wheel must have bounced over the brick 
and thus saved the lamb from all injury except 
the natural mute fright of his kind. 

The sheep were not shorn to meet the first 
inclemencies of a Little Siberian spring, but 
they went abroad early for a little while each 
day for a picking. Boy, lamb though he was, 
had a hospitable way of taking charge of their 
going and coming. Thus, at once a child and 
father of the flock, his old fearlessness of the 
outside fold developed into a fearlessness of 
the outside world. When the scope of his 
entertainment proved too meagre to satisfy his 
hospitable ambition for the flock, he did not 
hesitate to lead his sheep to forbidden pas¬ 
tures. The climax was reached one day when 
a stranger rode into the sheep yard to say that 
he had met a bunch of tame Down ewes 
headed by a beautiful cosset two miles up 
country. 

Although Boy followed his shepherds back 


BOY 


149 


home with a sweet accession to their wishes 
that pointed plainly to the injustice of an 
hereditary imagination, he was put in a pen. 
The fence was so high that he knew he could 
not jump it, nor did he try. Every day when 
the ewes went forth he got up expectantly to 
be let out, and every day lay down again in 
disappointment. The busy shepherdess passed 
and re-passed him evasively. And the cause 
of Eliza’s evasion was not altogether because 
Little Siberia’s wise shearing time had come, 
and the sheep, sore at being held back from 
the joys of the full-blossomed spring, matched 
wits with the shepherds’ daily. Once Wel¬ 
come looked in on her caged son good- 
naturedly, while Girl stood fond and free be¬ 
side her. Though Boy had long forgotten and 
been forgotten of his dam, he was still at odds 
with his sister. But he could not reach her. 
Occasionally the farm help paused at his gate 
to say, “He is a cull.” The flock, with their 
customary contempt for them that dwell apart, 
cuffed and jeered at him through his bars. If 


i S o SHEEP OF THE SHEPHERD 

Boy did not fight back, neither did he com¬ 
plain. And at last when Girl passed alone in 
her best spring coat he forgot the old bone of 
fraternal contention. 

By furtive glances of which the lamb was 
not aware, the shepherdess was conscious that 
Boy’s rich coloring was fading, his back tak¬ 
ing on an ungracious curve, and his eyes grow¬ 
ing heavy. He minced at his hay and only 
chewed his cud when the flock were at home, 
as if mechanically reminded by their example. 

On the day that the boisterous sheep owner 
drove relentlessly into the yard Eliza paused 
for the doubtful consolation of a last look at 
the lamb. Boy raised his eyes obediently to 
the waiting figure, but a few days of neglect 
had wiped out months of care, and his primi¬ 
tive nature was insensible to the fluctuations of 
her human feeling. The finality of this aliena¬ 
tion of her own upbuilding smote the shep¬ 
herdess painfully. The lamb had acquired for 
her a new redeeming beauty. It was the 
beauty that always graces the going of them 


BOY 


151 

we have no power to stay: a souvenir of the de¬ 
parted which they never come back to mar. 

The sheep owner and the shepherd walked 
up as Eliza turned away. The shepherd 
looked out on the ruined farm. 

“No lamb was ever born in plenty,” he said, 
“that could lead a sheep astray.” 

“And many an old shepherd has been de¬ 
ceived by the look of a lamb,” said the 
Autocrat. “The twin sister now has a chance. 
She assimilates nutriment with characteristic 
Down promise.” 



1. 



CHAPTER XVI 


THE AUTOCRAT’S BABY 

The Autocrat stood in the sheep yard wait¬ 
ing for the busy shepherd. It was so cold that 
a drop from his eye froze on his cheek and 
two drops from his nose iced his upper lip. 
And still it was warmer in that yard, enclosed 
to garner every ray of winter sun, than it was 
in the shadow of the sheds. But disturbed 
feelings like troubled sheep seek cover. The 
Autocrat did not wander into the sheep barns 


152 






THE AUTOCRAT’S BABY 


i 53 


out of the cold but away from his pursuing 
thoughts. He was a man of strong decisions. 
He prided himself on being a man of few 
words. He had used thirteen unnecessary 
words when he said, “Many an old shepherd 
has been deceived by the look of a lamb.” 
Michael, at whom the remark had been 
thrown, had given no sign. It was through 
the medium of the sheep the Autocrat learnt 
that sheep-master sway is a weak thing beside 
shepherd love. There was not a sheep or lamb 
on Little Siberia which knew the Autocrat. 
His exile was colder than the cold. He had 
his flock philosophies about cold weather. 
He had felt the best happiness that exists in 
life for man or sheep come dancing out on the 
rays of a cold morning’s sun. But the frigid 
temperature of inhospitality has no sunny side. 
His greatest joy, the possession of the sheep, 
had now become a doubtful happiness. He 
found in the flock an evasive intangible quality 
not commerciable and therefore not his. It 
was Michael’s. It was Eliza’s. It lived with 


154 SHEEP OF THE SHEPHERD 

the shepherd and shepherdess after those they 
tended had met their ordained and their use¬ 
ful end. To the Autocrat the Spartan tragedy 
of the flock was wiped out by vigor. But only 
shepherd love could nourish that vigor which 
is to make the flocks go on. 

“I must be getting old,” said the Autocrat, 
and he stamped his foot to keep it alive. As 
he did this he was rather astonished to see a 
lamb stamp its foot at him as an intruder. It 
picked itself out in the shadow as a very young 
lamb indeed. 

The Autocrat whipped out his handker¬ 
chief to wipe away another drop from his eye 
and to allay a suspicious stinging at his nose. 
And then his eyes being clearer and his nose 
more comfortable, he plainly saw the lamb 
stand on three legs to wipe its eye with a soft 
hind foot and fall over in the effort. Nothing 
daunted, it accomplished the feat while fallen 
with a dirty shoe from which the fringe of in¬ 
fant cartilage had yet to wear away. 

It was not strange that a temperature that 


THE AUTOCRAT’S BABY 


1 5S 

could draw salt water from a strong man’s 
eyes could bring tears to the eye of a lamb four 
hours old. “Feel the cold?” asked the Auto¬ 
crat. “But your kind of a handkerchief’s 
taboo.” And he leaned over and used his own 
handkerchief on the lamb’s eye. 

It permitted this attention and then getting 
up skipped over to what might have been 
taken in its dark corner for a sheep disposed 
for dressing. Her hind legs were fastened 
far above comfortable pillowed height. Her 
head and shoulders were buried in the straw. 
The lamb, by way of warning, scratched per¬ 
emptorily at the prone nose of its mother and 
then climbed up the hilly body and took milk 
from a height to which few lambs have to 
reach for their earliest sustenance. 

The ewe was not dead. The hard weather 
had caused her too great earnestness in bearing 
a lamb. The shepherd, chief surgeon of them 
all, had passed through and done his rude best 
to save a fine young Shropshire; but a tem¬ 
perature that could bring salt water to a sheep 


156 SHEEP OF THE SHEPHERD 

master’s face had easily defeated the shep¬ 
herd’s mercy. 

The Autocrat saw the condition of the ewe 
at a glance, and his interest in the lamb now 
closely resembled hate. Its tears, so lately 
comrade with his own, had not even the senti¬ 
ment of near mourning. The man of strong 
decisions desired to end the ewe’s misery. He 
blew a sharp peculiar whistle to summon aid. 
The lamb only came to attention. She turned 
her head, stared, returned, and renewed her 
demands on her mother. 

The Autocrat thought that such a heartless 
lamb could live a week on its own initiative 
and he at once understood the absence of 
Eliza. So intent did he become on distracting 
the little thing’s attention from its dam that 
he pursed his lips and whistled an emphatic 
tune. Comforted and strengthened by the 
fruits of her climb the lamb came prancing at 
him sidewise. The Autocrat ignored its un¬ 
seasonable gambols. The lamb which had not 
left its mother of its own accord went back to 


THE AUTOCRAT’S BABY 


i57 


her. Incensed against his reason, the Autocrat 
advanced and scraped the lamb gently away 
with the toe of his rubber boot. The lamb 
rolled easily down the body of its mother, got 
up, looked at the intruding foot, and then re¬ 
plied with high curvets and leaps and a new 
scaling of its dam. Some dams teach their 
lambs greater appetite by pretended rough 
denial. This lamb responded naturally to 
such teaching. But to the Autocrat its gestures 
spelt nothing more charming than heartless 
impertinence. 

Clumsy with cold, awaiting the shepherd, 
he stood helpless in the dark corner bearing 
the lamb unwilling company. The blind 
walls of the shed faced the bitter northwest, 
thin walls to shelter such an earnest ewe from 
the bleakest aspect in all his domain. For 
years he had permitted Eliza to patch the 
cracks with burlap and overlooked the shep¬ 
herd’s extravagance with straw. Straw bed¬ 
ding nursed crops, but cases like this ewe’s 
were not common enough to warrant new shed 


158 SHEEP OF THE SHEPHERD 


walls. He looked at her sagging shoulders 
crushed down in the straw, at her limp fore¬ 
legs, at her head turned chin upwards. The 
sharp end of a straw was entering one eye. 
The Autocrat stooped and remedied this 
trifling irritation. The lamb, accustomed by 
instinct of the priority of infancy to hold place 
in any reasonable attendants’ mind, had fol¬ 
lowed him up and was butting its soft muzzle 
against his hand while he removed the straw 
from its mother’s eye. 

When the shepherd came at last and Old 
Eph dragged the ewe away the Iambi backed 
up nimbly in front of its dam’s nose as if to 
impede a journey which was to leave it lonely. 
The ewe smelt out her offspring and licked it 
as she passed. A sudden revulsion of feeling 
re-established the heartless lamb in the Auto¬ 
crat’s heart as he fell a prey to a foolish shep¬ 
herd fancy that a sheep had commended her 
lamb to his care. He adopted the baby ewe. 

Eliza was not enthusiastic. The shepherd 
was neutral. Both had always known, how- 


THE AUTOCRAT’S BABY 


i59 


ever, that if any breed could touch the Auto¬ 
crat’s heart it was the Shropshires. Their 
lambs did not reach Eliza’s greatest tender¬ 
ness. They so reminded her, she said, with 
their eyes buried deep in their broad full- 
fleeced polls, of little well-doing pigs. 

The lamb was called the Autocrat’s baby. 
She was taken into the shepherd’s hut there 
to put through the various ailments that at¬ 
tack even the domestic sheep when they are 
humanly domesticated. She grew but slowly, 
though she retained the same cheerful initia¬ 
tive about sheeply inconveniences that had 
once so unjustly contributed to the feeling that 
she was a heartless lamb. At no time was there 
any of that young pathos about her which 
would have made a tender nurse of Eliza. 
The practical attitude of the lamb satisfied the 
sheep master. Now that the first rub of his 
sympathy for the mother had worn down, he 
was rather pleased to have the lamb in league 
with him and carrying easily his new senti¬ 
ments for lambs and ewes. The lamb fared 


160 SHEEP OF THE SHEPHERD 


as well as foster lambs may fare. For every¬ 
body except the shepherds there hung about 
her the halo of the Autocrat’s fancy. And the 
fancy of an unfanciful man is apt to be a solid 
fancy. 

When the lamb went around the shepherd’s 
hut scratching its eye with its hoof, Rube 
would borrow a dime ostensibly to measure 
just enough zinc sulphate to make a wash for 
the inflamed orb. Though he never met with 
great success treating it, he showed his loyalty. 
Eliza dosed the lamb with internal diaphor¬ 
etics. The Autocrat himself learnt to admin¬ 
ister such common stimulants as tincture of 
rhubarb and black pepper. He never failed 
to whistle a tune afterwards for the lamb to 
caper by. And for this Old Eph dutifully 
kept his laughter. The businesslike ballet, as 
executed by the Autocrat’s baby, was not with¬ 
out a grave spontaneous grace all its own. 

By grazing time the lamb carried an exte¬ 
rior of some importance, if she was under¬ 
sized. Eliza believed that she had in some 


THE AUTOCRATS BABY 161 

queer manner communicated to the rest of the 
flock the fact that she belonged by selection to 
that being who held all their lives in his hands. 
Certain it was that the flock gave her space at 
pasture, and certain it was that she did not sigh 
for the sheep. Indeed, it was very hard work 
to get her to leave the cabin in the morning in 
time to use the flock for a guide. . And it be¬ 
came customary to hear Rube and Old Eph 
chaff each other alternately with this re¬ 
minder: “I believe it’s your turn to shove the 
Autocrat’s baby out to pasture.” For the 
heartless lamb, however unsociable towards 
the flock, could be permitted to miss nothing 
of sheeply routine. And after she fully real¬ 
ized the benefits of grazing and the joy of the 
air, she became as precocious in outdoor pur¬ 
suits as she had been indoors. 

At twelvemonths she had a lamb. The 
Autocrat had been on hand every day for a 
week in expectation of the event. When it 
became certain that the little ewe stood in need 
of surgical aid, Michael was called in. He, in 


162 sheep of the shepherd 


his simplicity, being too full of the importance 
of the case, grew nervous in his skill. Both 
dam and young were lost. 

The unsuccessful surgeon carried the news 
of his failure to the sheep master. He was 
surprised to hear him say: “Once in a while a 
man has to prove his own theories by his own 
mistakes, as well as the mistakes of others.” 

It was to Eliza the Autocrat said, “I shall 
be quite lonely until it comes my way to take 
to another lamb.” 




CHAPTER XVII 
THE SEASON’S ROUND 

The northwest corner of Little Siberia is 
pleasant at this time of year. Sly breezes 
apologize for the coming sun. Nothing dese¬ 
crates the quiet of our northern woodland. 
The haunts of men outline but slowly the hazy 
west. Their distant awakening does not dis¬ 
turb my dreams. For a few spell-like mo¬ 
ments the flock live for me and I for them. 
The squirrel and the rabbit come among us 
unafraid. From the home valley the plow- 

163 


164 SHEEP OF THE SHEPHERD 


man lends us his cheerful morning note. For 
the dark woods that shut away the blessed sun 
are down, and we plow, we sow and we reap 
as they reap at Goshen. 

The morning wears to noon. Karl’s tongue 
becomes rough and dry. His oxen stumble. 
The late May lambs come up to me under the 
shade of the big pine—Ebony, sedate and se¬ 
rious like her mother, and Bonnybuck, all gay. 
Young Chamomile raises her winsome face, 
and Fairy Foot rests her chin in my palm to 
ruminate contentedly. Friendly Face licks 
my hand as she stands beside me looking out 
to the west. The vista touches her imagina¬ 
tion too, and Friendly Face is sure she sees 
luscious crops within easy reach of her fleet 
hoofs. But because I do not see them, 
Friendly Face assures me that she will not 
seek them. 

A man can be heard sorting stone in a dis¬ 
tant hedge. Various and unwelcome noises 
float up from the busy west. Other members 
of the flock, as the heat of the day or a satisfied 


THE SEASON’S ROUND 165 

appetite leads them, muster round. Choco¬ 
late, the Touch-me-not, stands on the outer¬ 
most edge. She freely enjoys my company, 
but she never has given me hers. 

All at once the leader’s voice breaks forth, 
and we face south with one accord. The sheep 
come down in an unbroken overlapping line, 
heads, necks and hearts reaching for home. 

The sweat of the noon heat is like a disease 
in the blood. Occasionally a full-fleeced lamb, 
remembering the comfort of infancy, breaks 
line to nose at the udder of some ewe, who is 
herself thinking eagerly of the salt tonic, the 
refreshing water, and the siesta in the home 
shade. 

As the hot midsummer progresses, Eliza, 
the shepherdess, encourages the flock to hug 
shelter in the daytime. At night they make up 
for the lack of grazing by cosy suppers in the 
sheds and barns. For summer’s heat is more 
devastating to sheep than winter’s cold. Their 
appetites are keen when the sun goes down and 
the flies are asleep and the lantern light glim- 


166 SHEEP OF THE SHEPHERD 


mers hospitably under their roof. They surge 
about their shepherds in their eagerness for 
food. Rosebud bites through the frayed rope 
that holds the gate of her pen and bursts away 
from the food just apportioned her, while 
foolish little Naomi clambers up the barn wall 
after the mere reflection of fodder. 

The great heat passes like a bad dream, and 
again it is the beautiful sheep month of Sep¬ 
tember. I watch bright suns on shimmering 
grass and prosperous woolly backs. My fo¬ 
cussed eyes bring earth and sky together in a 
blend of color while I drink my fill of the 
good weather. The flock go out to pasture at 
a gallop, the forward flank turning short to 
meet the rear in a battle of heads. Again I see 
the great ram heading for me in the distance. 
The coming collision, gathering force as he 
nears, paralyzes me into sudden cowardice. I 
turn the head of the fond baby buck as he 
stands beside me. He bristles with brave 
anger and meets the terror and pride of the 
flock head to head. The virility that appro- 


THE SEASON’S ROUND 


167 


priates the challenge of danger blinds him to 
my injustice. But his forehead aches and he 
turns to me now for sympathy. I bend my 
face to his and in that moment I am hurt the 
most. 

But little recks the great ram, Othello II. 
The boisterous wind is exposing the nude side 
of the leaf. Legs in pairs take Highland 
flings, tails lose all sense of demureness, lambs 
bounce, grown sheep fling themselves bodily 
into air to drop to earth with incredible light¬ 
ness, while the entire army, never disbanding, 
rips right on to the confines of their pasture 
and back again. This is the month when sheep 
take stone walls and fences in preference to 
the beaten paths, tumbling over easily in most 
unexpected places. The madness of the first 
cool days is on them. Old ewes skip till their 
breath comes scant, and shepherds watch for 1 
the advances of the modest ones, patiently fol¬ 
lowing the parent of the flock. 

When the gamboling days are over, they 
settle down to the sweet wind-freshened pas- 


168 SHEEP OF THE SHEPHERD 


ture; for Little Siberia at last is blossoming as 
the rose. Some of the flock, nose to nose, hunt 
grass and clover, others walk alone, resenting 
with a sidelong brush of the head any trespass 
on their selection; all move in search of that 
particular food their appetite craves, vaguely 
aware, now the fun is over, that this change 
of season has its serious side. Despite her 
vaunting attitude of a few days back, the 
shadow of a flying bird is enough to startle a 
lamb to my knee. Sheep who felt no scare a 
month agone shy off now at the jump of a rab¬ 
bit. Meditative ewes poke their noses into 
Eliza’s hand and lay up capital in her bank 
of favors for the coming winter. If the bril¬ 
liant sunshine be overshadowed for a minute, 
youngsters tug like puppies at her dress. Even 
Chocolate accepts a pat on the head, but re¬ 
gards all further manifestations as suspicious. 
In the minds of untamed sheep, as in the minds 
of all wild things, one fear is the mother of all 
fear—it is the fear of being caught. 

November finds the flock too alert to be rest- 


THE SEASON’S ROUND 


169 


ful. The temperature continues to fall. The 
wind holds surprises and the sunshine is fickle. 
The sheep become more and more industrious 
and clever at pasture. They twist head to tail 
to reach succulent bits their feet might spoil. 
They crane for the wild apple and cherry, 
catch the boughs in their mouths, clamber up 
and hold them down, and strip them leaf by 
leaf. If by any chance the bough be too elas¬ 
tic, they make the next reach certain by break¬ 
ing it off with their sharp back teeth. Even 
the tops of the seeded birch, felled for fire¬ 
wood, meet the fancy of some in the sharp 
winds of autumn, and the needles of the pine 
are occasionally eaten—the medicinal doses of 
natural turpentine correcting the ravages of 
the internal parasite. Lambs chase the scud¬ 
ding leaves, dash at them, miss them and cry 
back to Eliza to check the wind. The season 
of indoor feeding is well-nigh begun. 

In the sheep fold all fear of the dearth of 
the winter leaves them. They have watched 
all summer great crops of clover and grass, of 


i7o SHEEP OF THE SHEPHERD 


oats and cow peas, of millet and alfalfa, drawn 
into shelter. They have seen load after load 
of the succulent rutabaga deposited in safe 
storage. Little Siberia has at last yeaned them 
great harvests. Three times a day will plenty 
be apportioned them till summer comes again, 
and they can eat and ruminate and sleep and 
patiently await the coming of their young. 

Sicomac is nonchalantly happy with her 
chin propped on the lattice of the gate chew¬ 
ing her cud. The dejected attitude of the 
wind-bowed saplings is naught to her. They 
are outside the fold, and she within is waiting 
for her shepherd. Brownie Boy is on his 
flank, fast asleep in his perfect security. 
Young Chamomile has her back propped 
against a half barrel, her legs and tail in per¬ 
fect abandon. Narcissus, couched and atten¬ 
tive, is peacefully ruminating. For since the 
passing of Master, the sheep fold has been 
made more sheltered and unobtrusive, away 
from the haunt of the tramp dog, and night 
and day within Shepherd Michael’s hail. 


THE SEASON’S ROUND 


171 

The Bit-ba’s note rings out like the chal¬ 
lenging trill of a prima donna. She sees the 
shepherd coming and swings her feathery 
tail in excitement. The brown-faced Kiddy 
shakes her head with mischievous glee and 
bucks her twin sister Elizabeth, to wake her 
up to the great event. Brownie yawns, gets up 
and rubs his woolly head against the shep¬ 
herd’s leg. Greyhampton looks up in his face 
and says, “B-b-wha.” They cannot see on 
Michael’s face the wear of weather and ne¬ 
cessity. He takes their young and breaks their 
hearts. He lets their life blood out. But he 
has never refused them the fold or failed to 
provide. 

They do not know Eliza’s hair is growing 
scant. She pours down their throats the nau¬ 
seous drug. She pares their hoofs until they 
bleed and dips them in the burning antiseptic. 
She delivers them over to the knife. But she 
feeds them as lambs, and as sheep she does not 
desert them. 

They dip their heads in the troughs of bran 


i 7 2 SHEEP OF THE SHEPHERD 


and babble sweet nothings like the music they 
sang to their dams at suckling time. Sicomac 
still seeks to oust poor Chrissy. But Chrissy’s 
big appealing eyes are never turned on Eliza 
in vain. Desdemona is at her elbow saying 
“Ma-e!” Rosebud’s “My-y-ow,” sounds be¬ 
side Rosemary’s “B-b-1, B-b-1.” Brown Sis¬ 
ter speaks in the tone that she’ll use to her 
lamb, a note of pain and ecstasy in one. The 
beetle-browed Infanta frowns love, while 
squinting Kiddy turns her adoring glance on 
her own nose. The foolish Wish-It will not 
be confined until her share is ready, but bursts 
open her gate, and the waiting Naomi rushes 
into the vacated place. A poor little two-year- 
old is nosing at Sicomac’s udder, a protest for 
food, a gesture from babyhood. Sicomac does 
not want it all, but Sicomac loves to corner it 
all. She gives way to her shepherdess, and 
looking up in her face says sweetly, “Bab- 
bab!” This remark never fails to elicit one 
in Belladonna’s ventriloquial tenor which 
makes us all start and look towards the hills. 


THE SEASON’S ROUND 


i 73 


At noon Rube, the woodman, finds time to 
trim and grind turnips, and Old Eph, the 
stable hand, carries them out in great baskets 
for Eliza and the shepherd to feed. At night 
the hay racks are supplied with enough fodder 
to keep the herd happy till another day. By 
the time the day’s feeding is over the big ram 
in his pen in the moonlight looks like a cari¬ 
cature, the great form of Mallard plays tricks 
with my eyes, and the noses of the sheep are 
long, outdrawn by their own shadows. Tem¬ 
porary screens are dropped north and east of 
the sheds; for snow is expected ere the morn. 
The flock is put to bed. 

In its nightly satisfaction is my own 
thanksgiving. Wherever the stern Autocrat 
may send us next Little Siberia is regener¬ 
ate and every day is Sunday for the sheep. 
Wrapped in the quiet of their Sabbath, I see 
their pain without impatience, and feel their 
fear unafraid. 


(THE END) 














































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